Panel discusses felons who want right to vote

BY ROBIN FARMER
Media General News Service
Published: April 23, 2008

When Hasan Zarif was sentenced to life in prison in 1973, he knew he had to turn his life around.

“I went in with a sixth-grade education, I came out with a college education,” Zarif said Tuesday during a symposium at the Omni Richmond Hotel on “Restoration of Voting Rights to Ex-Offenders in Virginia.” He was paroled after 17 years.

“After 35 years and six months I got my right [to vote] restored,” by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, said Zarif, chaplain service coordinator for Goodwill of Central Virginia.

Zarif was part of a panel that addressed the disenfranchisement of numerous voting-age Virginians because of felony convictions. He spoke during a 90-minute symposium coordinated by the Virginia Annual Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Among the participants were Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd; Del. Dwight Clinton Jones, D-Richmond; the Rt. Rev. Adam J. Richardson, bishop of the Second Episcopal District; Bernard Henderson, deputy secretary of the commonwealth of Virginia; William J. Pantele, president of Richmond City Council; and Melvin Law, president of the Richmond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Virginia has among the harshest laws nationwide. Offenders with felony convictions automatically lose the right to vote, although there is a procedure for restoring it under certain conditions. “The governor is committed to restoring these rights” and already has done so for 1,340 people so far, Henderson said.

Because the upcoming presidential race has generated interest among ex-offenders, all applications for restoration of rights filled out accurately and received by Aug. 1 will be responded to with the hope of being approved in time for the presidential election, he said.

Another speaker said that 378,000 Virginians are unable to vote because of past criminal convictions as of 2001, but Henderson said the number is unknown.
To apply for restoration of rights, nonviolent offenders must meet criteria that include a three-year waiting period after all court obligations are fulfilled. For violent offenders or those convicted of drug manufacturing or distribution offenses, the wait is five years.

More information is available online at http://www.commonwealth.virginia.gov or by calling (804) 786-2441. Help is also available at Third Street Bethel A.M.E.
Church, 616 N. 3rd St. in Richmond. The church, which is the conference’s host, has been working on voter registration all year.

Robin Farmer is a staff writer at Media General’s Richmond Times-Dispatch.