Thread: Should ex-felons vote?

Should ex-felons vote?

With different laws in each state, some urge a federal answer to the question.

By Emma Dumain

If you're a U.S. citizen over the age of 18, you have the right to vote.

If you're convicted of a felony, you could have that right taken away — but it all depends on where you live.

In Kentucky, you'll lose the right to vote forever. In Wisconsin, you'll only get it back after you've finished probation and parole. In Vermont, you can mail your ballot from prison.

Civil-rights groups are pushing back against some of the tighter restrictions with lawsuits, most recently with a successful case in Washington state.

Meanwhile, the mishmash of state laws has led some to call for new federal standards which would allow felons to vote once they've left prison. Companion bills in the House and Senate (HR 3335 and S 1516), for instance, would require all states to give ex-felons the right to vote in federal elections.

But advocates admit that they face an uphill battle: few politicians want to go on record defending the rights of felons, and polls show many Americans support restrictions.

"I'd be surprised if it were able to pass this year," said Marc Mauer, the executive director of the Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., of the proposed legislation. "It's one of those issues that could take several years to build up broad bipartisan support."

Laws that prevent felons from casting ballots are centuries old. The practice came to America by way of the British colonies, which in turn were following a precedent set by the ancient Greeks and Romans. They bestowed upon criminals "civil death," a banishment from the political community.

Virginia was the first state to pass a law prohibiting ex-felons from voting and, by 1869, 28 states had followed suit. Today, 48 states have some kind of barrier in place.


Maine and Vermont are the only states where even incarcerated felons can vote. In Virginia, as in Kentucky, felons are permanently disenfranchised.

Thirteen states plus the District of Columbia let felons vote after they completed their prison sentences, while 30 other states allow them to go the polls only after they've finished the three P's: prison, probation and parole.

And in each of these states, there are rules within rules. In Alabama, ex-felons must apply for "certificates of eligibility" once they complete their sentences. In Florida, re-registering to vote depends on the nature of the crime.

"The laws have grown organically across the country throughout history," said Erika Wood, director of the Right to Vote Project at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. "It has become a patchwork, with no federal standards, with no consistency."

The issue has long divided Americans on philosophical grounds. Some argue that voting is a privilege from which lawbreakers should not benefit. Others argue that it's a fundamental right and criticize what they say are overly broad restrictions.

But advocates of extending voting rights to all ex-felons say they are starting to see the tides shift in their favor. In the past 12 years, over a dozen states have passed laws that ease the path towards regaining enfranchisement.

Mauer said it is becoming harder for people to ignore the staggering number of African-Americans who are being disenfranchised. It's due, in part, to the stiffer drug laws and other tough-on-crime measures over the last 30 years that have resulted in more felony records for many black men.

The Sentencing Project reports that of the 5.3 million Americans currently ineligible to vote due to felony convictions, black men account for 1.4 million of them.

Mauer argued that the laws have racist effects and, in many cases, racist roots.

"Especially in Southern states, during the late 19th century, there were conscious attempts by legislators to use disenfranchisement laws to exclude black voters," Mauer said.

Dozens of states that currently bar felons from voting put those laws in place in the years following the abolition of slavery. Those years, lawmakers were turning to other ways of suppressing black votes: literacy tests, for instance, were designed to disqualify newly freed slaves who had never been taught to read or write.

Proponents of voting rights restrictions for criminals say that despite possibly racist intentions in the late 19th century, the staying power of these policies, and the broad support they enjoy today, is telling.

"Every state in the country except for two disenfranchises felons in one way or another, North and South," said Roger Clegg, president and general counsel for the conservative think tank Center for Equal Opportunity. "It's just not plausible to say this is all rooted in racism."

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that Washington State's disenfranchisement of incarcerated felons was, in fact, racially discriminatory, though the case is being appealed and might be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Public opinion on the issue will also be tested if voting rights bills first introduced in mid-2009 come to committee this year.

If a 2003 survey is any indication, lawmakers who support the legislation could have trouble gaining approval from their constituents on the issue, who largely remain on the fence.

From a sampling of 1,000 adults, sociologists Jeff Manza, Clem Brooks, and Christopher Uggen found that 82 percent of respondents were against permanently stripping ex-felons of their right to vote. At the same time, about 90 percent said they supported rescinding these rights for at least some portion of their sentences.

Clegg argued that the issue should stay at the state level.

"State lawmakers are are closer to the people and can make policies that reflect what those people want," he said.

Either way, he said that lawmakers are unlikely to spend the political capital on what will likely be a controversial decision.

"There will be obvious costs for politicians to say, ‘we have to let criminals vote,'" he said. "The reaction from a lot of people is going to be, ‘why should people who have committed serious crimes against fellow citizens be given the right to make laws that they, themselves, are unwilling to follow?'"

http://www.congress.org/news/2010/02/09 ... vote?all=1

Of course felons should have the right to vote.

""Every state in the country except for two disenfranchises felons in one way or another, North and South," said Roger Clegg, president and general counsel for the conservative think tank Center for Equal Opportunity. "It's just not plausible to say this is all rooted in racism.""

Of course it's rooted in racism as well as some bigotry. Check the race of your felons, North and South, and see what you come up with.