With our on-the-ground community partners, we employed several different approaches and tools to locate, contact and assist potential applicants:

• Outreach. At every practical opportunity, community partners and Advancement Project staff have widely distributed flyers, brochures, posters and wallet size “business cards” advertising the initiative & the toll-free number. This distribution has targeted barbershops, salons, community centers and other local venues.
• Research and Mapping. Through research, we mapped the cities with the highest concentration of re-entry populations throughout the Commonwealth to ensure the best allocation of resources, including direct outreach and collaboration efforts with local service providers and other social service groups (including faith-based community). 
• List Building. Through a collaboration with Project VOTE!, we have received the contact information for individuals who have self-identified as voting ineligible due to a felony conviction in the Norfolk area.  Advancement Project reached out to all individuals on the list.
• Community Clinics.  The community-based clinics convened by our partners are staffed by lawyers and non-lawyers and are designed to encourage potential applicants to participate in an initial and confidential intake interview.  These intake interviews assess the potential applicant's eligibility for voting rights restoration and, if eligible, immediate assistance with the application process is provided on-the-spot. 

Communications Strategy

Advancement Project's approach to racial justice problem-solving always entails a strategic public education component characterized by aggressive communications campaigns and media outreach.  With the clemency campaign, to reach our goals it has been necessary to employ effective communications vehicles to advance our outreach campaign to a large universe of potential applicants for voting rights restoration.   In large part, this has entailed an aggressive advertising campaign.

• Publicizing the Toll-Free Number.  In large part, the aggressive media and advertising public education campaign across the state was designed to publicize a toll free number—1-800-388-6744—where people with felony convictions could call and get assistance with obtaining and filling out the voter restoration application.  The number was advertised in newspapers and on radio; it was placed on billboards and in ads on buses and on bus shelters in targeted communities.  Since the toll-free number was widely publicized, we have logged more than a thousand calls from individuals asking questions and seeking assistance.  Many of those persons have scheduled appointments with our community partners and received direct assistance in completing and forwarding their petitions for restoration of voting rights.

To view some of the advertising click here.

Personal Stories

Perlie White
It's more than 20 years since Perlie White of Richmond, Virginia “did her time and paid her fine” – but despite two decades as a responsible citizen, she's still waiting for restoration of voter rights. At 77, she hopes justice comes soon; but her most recent petition was rejected by Governor Mark Warner on July 7, 2004, and she still has another year to go before she can reapply. And until she regains the right to vote, she will not consider herself truly free.

White was a participant in one of the Restoration Clinics that Advancement Project is sponsoring throughout Virginia to tackle rampant felony disenfranchisement. She is one of an estimated 700,000 former felons in the state denied voting rights after their sentences have been completed.

White's woes began in 1982, while her husband was in the hospital with a heart ailment. A neighborhood woman reputed to be an addict showed up at White's back door, and pushed her way in. “She had been yelling at me all the time, and she'd been walking around for two or three days, saying she was going to kill me.”

White's husband always kept a gun in the house and, amid the ensuing scuffle, the gun went off and hit the intruder in the stomach. The prosecutor asked for Murder One.

As is the case for many financially struggling people of color, White's defense left something to be desired. “I wasn't even there when they picked out my jury,” she recalls. And her lawyer sent a young associate in his stead, who did little to represent her. In the end, the state offered her a plea bargain of second-degree murder – five years for murder and one for possession of a gun. Based on her good behavior while in custody, she was released after serving 11 months.

However, getting her life back in order was a time-consuming, difficult, expensive process. I had a good parole officer, and a good record. He said, ‘I wish all my cases were like Perlie.' And I paid my fine, although it had somehow gone from less than $500 to more than $1,000, and that was a lot of money for me.”

Furthermore, White, who had previously worked as a nurse, was barred from many nursing jobs because of her felony conviction. “I wanted to go back to court to get it straight, but I had no money and eventually just let it go. And we got by. My husband drove a tractor-trailer and some of my friends, who knew me, let me work for them. God fixed it so I got through. But they told me that, ‘after five years, they'll give you your freedom,' and they didn't.”

White, who raised several of her grandchildren, now lives with her husband in a senior citizen home, supported by social security, and buoyed by a devoted family. “Two of the grand-kids are on their way to college,” she relates, “and I've got some smart great-grandchildren now.”

But she's still determined to get back her voting rights before she dies. “I always did vote before I got into trouble,” White says. “We pay taxes. If people have done their time and paid their fine, they should be able to vote; if you pay taxes, you ought to be able to vote. When you come out, you should be free. I've been out for 24 years, and this is hanging over my head for nothing.”

And now, more than ever, she thinks that vote is critical. “Each person has their own views and knows who to vote for,” White asserts, “someone who will do right by everybody. The world's in terrible condition because of that war over there, and terrorists, all of it senseless. I hope I live to see it be better. I'd like to see it before I leave, where people can get a better job… 6-7-8 dollars an hour is not enough to pay the rent. And the price of my medication is killing me, and the cost of food is disgraceful.

“I don't think it will get no better, but I've been praying on it”

Now White would like to vote on it as well. And feel truly free at last.

Kemba Smith
In 1994, an African American woman was sentenced to 24.5 years in federal prison. She was a first-time offender convicted in a drug distribution conspiracy case. At the time of Kemba Smith's sentencing, it became evident that she was also the victim of a turbulent four-year relationship involving physical, mental, and emotional abuse. Her abuser forced her to participate in his drug ring. In 2000, Ms. Smith was granted a conditional pardon by President Clinton. Subsequent to her release, she received corporate sponsorships to speak at a number of schools and colleges regarding the social, economic, and political consequences of drug policies. In 2002 she graduated from Virginia Union University and is now a student at the Howard University School of Law – yet the presidential pardon did not make her eligible to vote in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Anthony Suggs
Anthony Suggs was destined to be a boxing star. By the age of 21, he was ranked number one in the country and fourth in the world and soon found himself at an Olympic training center preparing for the Pan American Games. The year was 1987, and one day after arriving at the training center, Suggs received a phone call – his infant daughter had died a crib death. Immersed in grief, he spiraled downward, quickly becoming a drug addict; five years later he was convicted of a felony drug offense.

Since his release in 1992, Suggs has been a model citizen, volunteering with community-based programs to help youth along the path to success. He won the Virginia Welter Weight state title and became a sparring partner for Sugar Ray Leonard. Suggs maintained full-time employment while volunteering as a boxing coach, and has been invited to share his life experiences with youth at local high schools.

Suggs, certain that he wanted to participate in our democracy, sought the restoration of his voting rights. The nature of his felony conviction meant that he needed to complete the “long” application for restoration of voting rights. He was able to complete the application with assistance from a trained advocate who met with him at least three times, a resource that is not available to most of the 243,000 citizens seeking the restoration of their voting rights. Without that assistance, Suggs, who has a reading disability, would have been lost in the complicated web of requirements for completing the “long” application.

Thankfully, Anthony Suggs' right to vote was restored by the governor of Virginia. His experience, however, demonstrates the burdensome process for restoration of voting rights in Virginia and endorses a process of automatic restoration for all persons who have completed their sentence.