Shawn Barksdale lost his right to vote before he was even old enough to cast a ballot.
When he was 17 years old and living in South Boston, Virginia, Barksdale was convicted of a felony in 1994 for selling cocaine and sentenced to Barrett Juvenile Correction Center for one year.
“I ran in the streets,” he said. “I turned 18 inside of that juvenile system.”
Barksdale, now 47, said that losing the right to vote at such a young age made him angry and without a voice.
“My mindset was, ‘My vote doesn’t count anyway,’” he said. “I really didn’t understand the right, the power of voting.”
That disenfranchisement, in part, led to another prison sentence, this time 15 years for armed robbery for Barksdale when he was in his early 20s.
At the time of Barksdale’s first felony conviction, restoring the right to vote for a formerly incarcerated person was a power only the governor had. That’s thanks to an article in the commonwealth’s constitution dating back to the beginning of the 19th century.