While politicians urge Americans to do their civic duty and vote, three million former felons seeking a way to reconnect to civic life are barred from the ballot box. PNS associate editor Joe Loya, who spent seven years in federal prison on bank robbery charges, is writing an autobiography. A longer version of this essay appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.

OAKLAND, CA. -- A few weeks ago I received voter-registration material in the mail. There it was, clearly marked, my disqualification. "You must NOT be in prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony."

I felt obligated to press further, to fight for the privilege. I telephoned the registrar and explained that I'm on "supervisory release," not parole. Could I vote?

She had to check. On hold, I thought about the almost 3 million felons like me who have served our sentences but still can't vote. Some of us are permanently barred. She came back on line.

"Nope, you still can't vote."

I came out of prison wanting to think and act 100 percent different than when I went in. I supposed that the opposite of the virulently anti-social criminal is an optimistic civic-minded citizen.

That's where the confusion started. Less than half the eligible electorate has voted in every presidential election for the past 20 years. Apathy and cynicism run deep. The average citizen, it turns out, has that in common with the average prisoner.

During the summer of 1992 many prisoners of the war on drugs were hoping for respite from the lengthy mandatory prison sentences the courts were meting out. They talked about having better chances with a Democrat as president. Bill Clinton sounded like the man.

But Gov. Clinton chilled prisoners nationwide when he took a break from the campaign trail to preside over the Arkansas execution of Ricky Ray Rector. Rector was so dumb that when he finished his last meal, he remarked that he was going to save his peach pie for after the execution. He always ate his dessert at bedtime.

That presidential election sobered many prisoners. And the politics behind bars did nothing to alleviate cynicism.

My last residence was Norfolk Men's Prison in Massachusetts. Like some prisons reformed in the '70s, Norfolk prison had an inmate council. Candidates would promise better visiting privileges, cheaper prices in the canteen, less brutality from guards.

I never cared. In prison, nothing is given that the warden doesn't want to give. Prisoners of a real revolutionary stripe -- who clandestinely agitated others to stay in their bunks and not go to work or to "chow" -- were always shuffled off to another prison in the hush of night. The inmate council members were suspected of surrendering the rabble-rousers in exchange for good-time credit, or a transfer to a lower-security prison closer to home. I called the council a puppet regime, our version of Vichy.

While at Norfolk, I received an offer for three free issues of the National Review, a conservative rag. Bored, I said sure. They must have sold their mailing list, because soon every Republican in the state, along with Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich, sent me a letter that began, "Dear Friend," or "Dear Fellow Conservative." They'd proceed to defend their agenda, which usually began with getting tough on criminals. Then they'd ask for donations.

The irony continues in my civic life: Although my donations count, my vote doesn't. Although many who can vote are as apathetic and cynical as I once was, they have a privilege I don't.

A study released last week by Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project claims that 1.4 million black men (thirteen percent of all black men) are unable to vote. "If current trends continue," the report notes, "in a dozen states as many as 30-40 percent of the next generation of black men will permanently lose the right to vote." That's a vast possible constituency shipwrecked before they are aboard.

If I dwell on it, I could easily feel myself a member of a marginal criminal class again, resentful to have given up the clandestine life for one that offers no substantive role in exchange. Without a vote, a voice, I am a ghost inhabiting a citizen's space: silent as a spy, treated as a traitor, as unrecognizable as a great impostor.