Some states work to expand voting rights for people with felony convictions State Rep. Park Cannon addresses media after case dismissed by Fulton County DA Replay Video For Tarra Simmons, a representative in the Washington legislature, Wednesday was a "full-circle moment." After initially failing in 2020, Gov. Jay Inslee restored voting rights to more than 20,000 people with felony convictions who are out of prison, but still under community supervision. Simmons, one of the bill's sponsors, knows the impact of disenfranchisement firsthand. After being "born into generations of addiction and incarceration and poverty and violence," Simmons was sentenced to prison in 2011 for selling a small amount of prescription drugs to financially fuel her own drug addiction, which she said resulted from trying to suppress the post-traumatic stress of her childhood.