“Baltimore resident Nicole Hanson couldn’t vote in elections during the three years she spent on probation, after finishing a term in prison.
“It was a heartbreaking experience, she said, because voting is part of her family’s culture. She remembers her grandmother and mother taking the whole family to the polls when she was a child. ‘The fact that I wasn’t able to engage in the process for my children,’ Hanson says, ‘words cannot describe the feeling.’
“During those years, Hanson says, she encouraged others to vote. ‘Even when I couldn’t vote, I was sending five, 10, 15 people to the polls.’”