Hey, I'm Brian Boyler, editor-in-chief at Cricket.com, and you're listening to Cricket Conversations.

We're nearing midterm elections at breakneck speed now, and a lot of people still have

not registered, and many others just won't turn out to vote.

When you ask those people why, many of them say they feel like their votes don't matter.

They forfeit the right to vote because they think the right is meaningless.

Millions of our fellow citizens don't even have the choice to begin with.

Currently, six million Americans who have been convicted of felonies are prohibited from

voting by their state governments.

The decision has been made for them.

For that reason, earlier this year, I visited San Quentin State Prison in Northern California.

From the outside, San Quentin is actually kind of beautiful.

It sits on a bluff looking south and east over the San Francisco Bay, and the Richmond

Sad Refelt Bridge.

It dates back to the Gold Rush, so some of the facilities still have these impressive,

almost Venetian facades.

But step inside, and it's definitely a prison.

It's a men's prison and home to the state's only death row, with the people who work

at the facility called Condemned Row.

Over 700 men await execution there.

Currently, Californians in state prison do not have the right to vote, and their rights

won't be restored until after they've been released and completed parole.

On today's episode, you'll hear a few conversations that I had with people who are serving felony

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