With Election Day on Tuesday, and recent-parolee Anthony Bottom's arraignment for illegally registering to vote, there has been some confusion on whether convicted felons can vote or not. 

The short answer is they can.

At the age of 15, Shane Andrews went to jail for 20 years.

"I did it to myself, I made a stupid mistake as a young kid, and I paid for it," he said.

Now, he’s 60 and married, with two kids and two dogs.

"I’ve done really well for myself since '94. It’s been a rough road, but I went to a lot of counseling, a lot of therapy," he said.

He says he was able to turn his life around all because of two men by the names of Avery T. Blackman and Ruddell Freeman.

"These two people believed in me, and that’s all it takes is two people to believe in you. And it motivates you to do good."

And he says he isn’t the exception.

"There are other people that have been incarcerated that I know to this day that have done good for themselves, you can change," Andrews said.

And after 26 years out of prison, it was only just this week that he learned he could vote, when a Get Out the Vote volunteer knocked on his door.

"She goes, 'what do you mean you can’t vote?' I said, 'I have felonies, I can’t vote.' She said, 'yes, you can,'" Andrews said.

In New York state, convicted felons are allowed to vote. And, as of 2018, parolees can vote once they are out of prison and have received a special pardon from the governor’s office.

"I paid my debt, my slate is clean. Why shouldn’t I be able to be able to vote?" Andrews said.

But Andrews says this is a horrible misconception he hopes to clear up, part of a larger stigma he wants to end.

"When you’re incarcerated, people look at you differently. Even though I’ve been out for twenty years, they still see you as an ID number. They don’t see you as a person," Andrews said.