MINNEAPOLIS — The 2024 presidential election was historic on many levels, but thousands of Minnesotans made history on their own.
It was the first statewide election since lawmakers cleared the way for persons on probation to take part in elections. Among those casting a vote for the first time in a presidential race was one of the leaders of Minnesota's Restore the Vote movement, Elizer Darris.
"Today really is an opportunity for us fully plug back into society," Darris told KARE after voting at the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis.
"We belong here. We pay taxes just like everyone else. We have children that go to the schools just like everyone else, we want to drive on smooth roads like everyone else."
Darris had been on the sidelines of presidential elections, first as an inmate at Stillwater Prison, and then as a disenfranchised member of the community on probation for the past eight years. He was legally prohibited from voting under the old law, which required former felony offenders to finish probation to have their voting rights restored.
If the law hadn't been changed, Darris would've remained barred from voting in a presidential race until the 2028 election. He worked as a community organizer and on political campaigns, making sure others could vote, but he couldn't do so himself.
"We may have made decisions in our past that weren't the best, but we're here now, and we're in the community now and we want to fully participate and be part and parcel of our democracy," Darris said. "So, today is a physical representation of us being fully embraced back into the community."
More than a decade ago the Second Chance Coalition gained bipartisan support at the Capitol for restoring the vote, but year after year the bill stalled. In 2019, Darris and others brought a lawsuit, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), hoping to overturn the state law. But the Supreme Court said it's up to the legislature to make that change.
In 2023, a new DFL majority at the State Capitol passed the Restore the Vote Act. When Governor Walz signed the bill, he gave Darris one of his ceremonial "Governor Walz" Sharpie pens.
That legislation cleared the way for Darris to vote in a presidential election for the first time at the age of 40.
"It felt very empowering to fill in that bubble. And, I've been talking about this for years, but I finally got this little red sticker!"
There's one vote left for Elizer Darris before the year ends. At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, his fellow delegates selected him to be a presidential elector for the 5th Congressional District. On Dec. 17 he'll go back to the State Capitol to cast a vote for Kamala Harris in the Electoral College.
The election didn't turn out the way he had hoped, but he's completed the trek from a man who couldn't even hold a ballot to one who'll be taking part in one of the oldest traditions of American democracy.