Nearly 6 million former prisoners –1 million of them black – will not be able to vote in the November presidential election because of state laws that continue to punish them even after they have completed their sentences, according to a recent report by the Sentencing Project. The report said 5.85 million formerly incarcerated citizens will be excluded. That’s five times the entire population of Rhode Island and more than the adult population of Virginia. “The most telling indicator of citizenship in the United States is that ability to cast a vote,” stated Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a non-profit group focused on restoring the civil rights of ex-offenders. “If you don’t have a voice you might as well be a slave.” He explained: “Every day a person is being disenfranchised in the minority community that weakens that community’s political voice.”