‘An irreplaceable feeling’: Formerly incarcerated advocate votes in Electoral College
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Elizer Darris has spent the past eight years since being released from prison advocating for Minnesotans to vote in their local elections. He has canvassed for political campaigns and served as a community organizer.
But it was always “bittersweet” for him because he knew he couldn’t vote.
This November, thanks to a new Minnesota law restoring voting rights for people on parole and probation that he lobbied for, he was able to vote in his first presidential election. And on Tuesday, he cast a vote as a Minnesota elector in the Electoral College.
“Year after year after year after year, that has been part of my narrative, and it no longer is. This was something that I’ve always wanted to do, and this November, I got an opportunity to actually do it,” he said.
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He is one of tens of thousands of Minnesotans with felony records who had their right to vote restored last year. Darris and nine others were selected to cast ballots as Minnesota’s members of the Electoral College. They met at the state Capitol in St. Paul on Tuesday, the same time as electors in states across the country, to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.
“You’re not only here as witnesses to history. You’re here as a part of history because you are literally making history,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said to the electors. “The 2024 election in Minnesota was also more inclusive than in 2020 in one critical respect, Minnesota restored the freedom to vote to over 55,000 people who have left prison behind.”
The room where they voted was only a few doors down from where Darris said his life sentence was reversed over 10 years ago. He also believes he is the first Minnesota member of Electoral College who is formerly incarcerated, although the Secretary of State’s Office could not confirm that.
“This is the culmination of a multidecade fight to make sure that our voices will be heard, and the type of chambers of power that I just got through leaving — we have a right to have our voices heard,” he said.
Darris, 40, is also a community organizer, lobbyist and advocate. He helped push for Minnesota’s Restore the Vote law.
“I represent the voices of many who have come together as a coalition to fight for an open democracy,” he said. “And so I wasn’t sitting there raising my hand and signing documents as an individual person or even as an outlier. I was a participant and a full participant who deserved to be there but also had the weight and the expectation of those of us who have all fought to make that moment happen.”
The assembly voted unanimously for Harris and Walz, as is dictated because the pair won the popular vote in Minnesota. Darris’ wife and his one-year-old daughter were there to witness him take his oath as an elector and say the names of Harris and Walz.
Although it was a “bittersweet moment” for Darris because President-elect Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance ended up winning the election, he said it was a privilege to be a part of the state’s Electoral College votes.
“I want my daughter to see me supporting such a brilliant and fearless human being who stood up, raised her hand and said, ‘send me.’ And then to have my wife who has been ever supporting, ever loving, to also be here and to witness her husband be a presidential elector, one of 10 in this entire state — to look up into the rafters and to see the pride and the joy and hear the cooing from my daughter. It was an irreplaceable feeling,” said Darris.
