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Ángel Solís of the Bronx was 18 when he first voted, excited to participate in the 2004 election. At the time a registered Republican, having been raised in a conservative household – “everybody hated me in the Bronx” he recalled – Solís said he voted for then-President George W. Bush and that it was “fun” to see his candidate emerge victorious. “I got to see democracy in action from a very young age,” Solís said. “It was my first taste of being a citizen.”
Not long after, Solís went to prison on burglary charges, where he would spend the majority of the next 15 years of his life. Now 34 and a Democrat, Solís said when he was released in 2016 he didn’t feel much like a citizen anymore. As someone convicted of a felony and on parole, he had lost his right to vote. “I m trying to be a citizen, I m trying to do everything I m supposed to,” Solís said. “Yet I can t participate in the most important thing that we Americans hold dear, I can t vot