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Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights
By Liz Budnitz – 09/05/08
Looks like conservative pundit Abigail Thernstrom thinks the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" is outdated. The song she thinks we should sing now is "We Overcame, So Quit Whining."
According to Thernstrom's recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, disenfranchisement of African Americans is "a closed chapter in American history." After all, impediments to black voting have all but disappeared and civil rights groups are just habitually pessimistic, fighting a battle that has already been won, she claims.
Turns out Thernstrom has a healthy case of civil rights revisionism. How could the civil rights movement be finished when legal barriers still keep hundreds of thousands, even millions, of African Americans from the polls?
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy, Voting Rights & Elections
By Kahlil Williams – 06/20/08
Yesterday, Governor Charlie Crist (R) reported that Florida
has restored voting rights to 115,232 people with felony convictions since the
state revised its clemency procedure. The new clemency rules that Crist pushed
through in 2007 ease the restoration process for some who have committed lesser
offenses, like low-level drug dealing. The impact of the change is notable, and
Governor Crist should be acknowledged
for taking an important first step. But there is still much work to be done.
First, the total number of people stripped of their voting
rights because of a criminal conviction is about 950,000, meaning that only
about 12% of those who are disenfranchised have regained the right to vote
since the 2007 change. According to the Florida Department of Corrections,
nearly 300,000 of these people are "Level I" offenders convicted of crimes that
permit them to regain their voting rights under the new rules. But because of
backlogs created by the still cumbersome process, the majority of those
potential voters remains unable to cast a ballot in November.
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Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy, Voting Rights & Elections
By Thaddeus Kromelis – 06/09/08
In case you missed it, there is an inspiring piece in today's Providence Journal chronicling Andres Idarraga's remarkable change of course. In short, over the span of ten years, Idarraga has gone from has gone from prison to graduating from Brown University to finally being admitted to Yale Law School—A.T. Wall, director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, actually drove him to New Haven for a meeting with the law school's dean.
Andres Idarraga served as one of the primary spokespeople for the Rhode Island Right to Vote campaign, and he is one of 15,000 Rhode Islanders with a conviction in their past who had their right to vote restored when voters approved a ballot referendum in November 2006. He has written for this blog before. His personal account of having his right to vote restored in Rhode Island can be found here.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy
By Erika Wood – 04/21/08
Cross-posted from Alternet.com
This is a big year for American democracy. Hundreds of thousands of new voters
are not only registering, but are actually showing up at the polls. States
whose primary races have never counted before are suddenly the center of
attention. Voters in Wyoming, Mississippi, North Carolina,
and Kentucky,
who have long gone ignored during primary season, finally find themselves with
a voice and a vote. This year they matter.
Despite this, our democracy still falls far short of its promise to be a
government that truly represents the will of its citizens. Across the country
there are 5.3
million Americans who are denied the right to vote because of a felony
conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of these people are not in prison; they
live, work, pay taxes, and raise families in our communities, but remain
disenfranchised for years, often for decades, and sometimes for life.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Voting Rights & Elections
By Erika Wood – 02/23/08
Senator Russ Feingold and Secretary Jack Kemp joined together last week
to propose the Democracy Restoration Act—a federal law that seeks to restore voting rights to U.S. citizens on probation and parole. The proposal is noteworthy for several reasons, not the least of which is that it is made by two prominent political figures: a Democrat and a Republican. The bipartisan proposal makes it clear that restoring voting rights is about democracy, not about politics.
More than 5.3 million American citizens are denied the vote in our country because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly four million are people who have been released from prison but continue to be disenfranchised for years, often for decades, and sometimes for life.
As Senator Feingold and Secretary Kemp note, there has been significant momentum in the states to end these draconian disenfranchisement laws. In the last decade, 16 states have eased voting restrictions on people with conviction histories. In 2007 alone, Florida, Maryland, and Rhode Island all took steps to restore voting rights. But disenfranchisement is a national problem. Thirty-five states continue to deny the vote to people who have been released from prison and rejoined society.
The right to vote forms the core of American democracy. Once a privilege reserved for a few white men, Americans have fought hard to make it a right guaranteed for all. The Democracy Restoration Act would make this ideal into a reality. It is a proposal that we can all come together to support, not as Democrats or Republicans, or liberals or conservatives, but as Americans who believe in our democracy.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Voting Rights & Elections
By Judith Joffe-Block – 11/15/07
*Cross-posted from ReformNY
For the first time in 40 years, New York’s hodge-podge sentencing procedures are poised for a thorough review and revision.
In March Governor Spitzer tasked the State Commission on Sentencing Reform, an 11-member body of law enforcement officials, state legislators and criminal justice experts, with creating a proposal for streamlining the state’s sentencing structure.
The Commission’s preliminary report, which was released last month, includes an enlightened recommendation to restore voting rights to people on parole in New York.
It’s about time. A quick peek into the history of the state’s felony disenfranchisement law reveals ugly origins:
Back in 1821, delegates at the state’s Constitutional Convention brainstormed how new requirements could be used to exclude African Americans from the polls. Their efforts resulted in Article II of the state constitution which imposed special property requirements on African Americans and established a felony disenfranchisement provision which the delegates believed would target African Americans.
Fast-forward to the present, and that same misguided felony disenfranchisement provision remains in tact today, and it has achieved its intended result: 87% of those currently disenfranchised in New York are Latino and African American.
The disenfranchisement provision not only makes election administration more confusing (Brennan Center surveys have revealed that even a good portion of Board of Elections officials get confused about who can vote), but also dilutes the voting power of New York’s communities of color.
On Tuesday, advocates and experts had a chance to give the Commission comments at a public hearing at the New York City Bar Association. (A hearing in Albany is being held today, and one is scheduled for next Monday in Buffalo).
The Brennan Center’s Erika Wood testified in favor of restoring voting rights upon release from prison and outlined how the Governor could change the current law through executive order.
The Commission recognizes that fostering civic participation is one way to facilitate the re-entry process, and that restoring the right to vote to people on parole is fundamental to that participation. Hopefully the Governor will heed the Commission’s wise counsel.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, State-Based Advocacy, Racial Justice
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