Norton Ensures Hope Village Grants D.C. Residents Passes to Vote After They Were Initially Denied

Press Release

After receiving a report that some District of Columbia residents at Hope Village Residential Reentry Center had been denied permission to vote in today's election, the office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) placed a call to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which has jurisdiction over federal halfway houses, including those in the District, to clear up what appeared to be confusion about who is eligible to register and vote in D.C. Later, Norton called Hope Village officials and learned that they had begun granting passes to residents who desired to cast ballots. Under D.C. law, those incarcerated for a felony conviction may not vote, but it appears that those convicted of a felony serving their sentence outside of a penitentiary, including at a halfway house, are eligible to vote.

Norton said she will write the D.C. Board of Elections to ask that they provide formal guidance to prevent this confusion in the future and to clarify that under D.C. law, for purposes of voting, incarceration does not include residential reentry centers or other places residents have permission to serve their sentences outside of a penitentiary.

"Taxation without representation naturally makes D.C. residents hypersensitive to any denial of the votes we do have," Norton said. "It speaks well of our residents that they were anxious to vote even while being held without their full freedom. Thanks to clarity from the initial confusion, this story seems to have ended with D.C. residents who are not fully free are nevertheless free to vote."

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