Blog
Voting After Criminal Conviction
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Looks like conservative pundit Abigail Thernstrom thinks the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" is outdated.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, 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.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, 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
By Michael Waldman – 05/23/08
I just sat through a nail-biting, emotionally exhausting
two hour TV movie. The opening ten minutes were especially
nerve-wracking. The film begins with elderly Floridians squinting at
their butterfly ballots, then stabbing at the ballots, scary music playing,
over and over, voting by accident for Pat Buchanan. Think of the shower
scene in "Psycho" with your grandmother instead of Janet Leigh. Even more
exciting: would the panting, lurching advance man catch up with Al Gore before
he walked onstage to concede?
Maybe not everybody would find this as thrilling. But
Recount,which airs on HBO this Sunday, is one of the
better political movies I've ever seen. It "gets" the motives and methods
of political players better than anything in years. More relevant to the
work of the Brennan
Center, it brings to life
the ways our elections can go wrong, and the rickety and often corrupt
machinery by which we still cast and count votes.
(Full disclosure: I am an old colleague and friend of Ron
Klain, the protagonist; I see GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg at the beach many summers;
and I go duck hunting with James Baker every year. Well, that part isn't
true. But like anyone involved in politics, back then I had a rooting interest
in the outcome of the recount.)
The narrative crackles and does a good job portraying the
legal machinations that led to the Supreme Court's 5–4 intervention to stop the
counting, thus making George W. Bush President. It's all here, from the
"Brooks Brothers riot" in which Republican congressional staffers shut down the
counting in Miami,
to the frenzied efforts to read and understand the Supreme Court opinion that
announced its reasoning only applied to this case. The acting is
terrific, and the dialogue is sharp and as profane as real life politics (and
HBO).
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Voter Lists and Databases, Voter Purges and Challenges, Voting Technology
By Judith Joffe-Block – 05/20/08
*Cross-posted from ReformNY
Expanding
access to higher education in prisons and for those leaving prison.
Extending voting rights to people on parole. Limiting the imposition of
fees and fines on those leaving prison.
These are a few of the
proposals that reentry advocates will raise with the state legislature
today at the
2nd annual Advocacy Day in Albany.
The New York Reentry Roundtable has created a
comprehensive agenda
for reform that identifies reentry legislation the Roundtable is
supporting on matters relating to employment, housing, family
reunification, higher education, healthcare, financial debt, political
participation, and sentencing reform.
As we’ve mentioned in
past posts on ReformNY,
New York’s laws that disenfranchise people on parole are not only
unfair, but lead to confusion about who is eligible to vote, even among
county Board of Election officials. This confusion further contributes
to the de facto disenfranchisement of thousands of eligible voters and
dilutes the voting power of the state’s communities of color.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Voting After Criminal Conviction
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.
States vary
widely on when they restore voting rights to former prisoners. Maine and Vermont
do not disenfranchise people with convictions; even prisoners may vote there.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia disenfranchise people only while
they are incarcerated; five states disenfranchise those who are incarcerated or
on parole, but allow people on probation to vote; 20 states disenfranchise
people in prison, on parole, and on probation; and 10 states permanently
disenfranchise some categories of people who have completed their correctional
supervision. Kentucky and Virginia are the last two remaining states
that permanently disenfranchise all people with felony convictions, unless they
apply for and receive individual, discretionary clemency from the governor.
Jim Crow Roots
To fully appreciate how these laws compromise our democracy, it is important
to understand their deep roots
in the troubled history of American race relations. In the late 1800s these laws
spread as part of a larger
backlash against the adoption of the Reconstruction Amendments—the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution—which ended slavery, granted equal citizenship to freed slaves, and prohibited
racial discrimination in voting.
Over time, Southern Democrats sought to solidify their hold on the region by
modifying voting laws in ways that would exclude African-Americans from the
polls. Despite their newfound eligibility to vote, many freed slaves remained
effectively disenfranchised.
Violence and intimidation were rampant. The legal barriers employed—including literacy tests, residency requirements, grandfather clauses, and poll
taxes—while race-neutral on their face, were intentional barriers to
African-American voting.
Felony disenfranchisement laws were a key part
of this effort. Between 1865 and 1900, 18 states adopted laws restricting the
voting rights of criminal offenders. By 1900, 38 states had some type of felon
voting restriction, most of which disenfranchised convicted felons until they
received a pardon. At the same time, states expanded the criminal codes to
punish offenses that they believed targeted freedmen, including vagrancy, petty
larceny, miscegenation, bigamy, and receiving stolen goods. Aggressive arrest
and conviction efforts followed, motivated by the practice of "convict
leasing," whereby former slaves were convicted of crimes and then leased
out to work the very plantations and factories from which they had ostensibly
been freed. Thus targeted criminalization and felony disenfranchisement
combined to produce both practical re-enslavement and the legal loss of voting
rights, usually for life, which effectively suppressed the political power of
African Americans for decades.
The disproportionate
impact of felony disenfranchisement laws on people of color continues to
this day. Nationwide, 13 percent of African-American men have lost the right to
vote, a rate that is seven times the national average. In eight states, more
than 15 percent of African-Americans cannot vote due to a felony conviction,
and four of those states—Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, and Nebraska—disenfranchise more than 20 percent of their African-American voting-age
population.
These statistics mirror stark racial disparities in the criminal justice
system. A recent study
by the Pew Center on the States revealed that 1 in
100 Americans is now behind bars. That figure is startling enough, but the
study also reports that 1 in 9 African-American men between the ages of 20 and
34 is in prison.
The Ripple Effect of Disenfranchisement
Felony disenfranchisement laws do not only impact those who lose their
voting rights. Entire communities lose their political capital when their
citizens cannot vote. Denying the vote to one person has a ripple effect,
dramatically decreasing the political power of urban and minority communities.
Evidence suggests that disenfranchising the head of a household can
discourage his or her entire family from civic participation. Many people's
first experience with voting or political engagement comes through their
parents—by joining them at a town meeting, attending a school board hearing,
or accompanying them into the voting booth. A parent can provide critical "how-to's" of voting, including such basics as how to
register and where to vote. In fact, of the various factors included in the
study, the parent's political participation had the greatest effect on the
child's initial decision to vote.
Andres Idarraga, who recently had
his right to vote restored by a recent change to Rhode Island's law,
explained, "coming from a family in which voting had rarely, if ever, been
discussed, this was a new beginning."
Throughout the country, minority communities have lost political influence
thanks to felony disenfranchisement laws. In the last 25 years, as
incarceration rates skyrocketed and African-Americans were sent to prison at a
rate seven times that of whites, the political power of minority communities has
been decimated. It's a simple equation: communities with high rates of people with felony convictions have
fewer votes to cast. Consequently, all residents of these communities, not just
those with convictions, lose their political influence.
What's more, even when people with felony convictions are eligible to vote,
they are often de facto disenfranchised due to bureaucratic barriers. In 2003, Alabama
could not process more than 80 percent of applications within statutory time
limits, and completely failed to respond to dozens of applications. And in New York,
Brennan Center surveys have repeatedly uncovered
widespread confusion and misinformation among elections officials. In 2005, one
third of local election boards mistakenly advised that people could not vote
while on probation, and many illegally required unnecessary documentation
before allowing people to register.
Dispelling Disenfranchisement Myths, Restoring Democracy
Fortunately, there are signs of progress. Advocates, policy-makers, and some
unusual allies have made great strides towards restoring voting rights, and
have built significant national momentum towards building a more just and
inclusive democracy.
Critics of voting restoration argue that disenfranchisement is an
appropriate punishment for breaking the law. But in fact, many in law
enforcement have come to believe that felony disenfranchisement laws do more
harm than good. The American Probation and Parole Association recently released
a resolution
calling for restoration of voting rights upon completion of prison, finding
that "disenfranchisement laws work against the successful reentry of
offenders." Many realize
that, in terms of public safety, bringing people into the political process
makes them stakeholders, helping to steer former offenders away from future
crimes. As one Kentucky
prosecutor wrote,
"Voting shows a commitment to the future of the community." Branding
people as political outsiders by barring them from the polls disrupts reentry
into the community and does not do anything to keep people from re-offending.
There is absolutely no credible evidence showing that continuing to
disenfranchise people after release from prison serves any legitimate law
enforcement purpose. Disenfranchisement has nothing to do with being
"tough on crime."
Since 1997, 16
states have reformed their laws to expand the franchise or ease voting
rights restoration procedures. Recent
reforms include an executive
order signed by then-Governor Tom Vilsack in Iowa
which restored voting rights to 80,000 Iowa
citizens on Independence Day, 2005. On Election Day 2006, Rhode Island voters were the first in the
country to approve
a state constitutional amendment authorizing automatic restoration of voting
rights to people as soon as they are released from prison. The Rhode Island
Department of Corrections became a voter registration agency, and now every
individual is handed a voter registration form on the day they leave prison. In
April 2007, Florida Governor Charlie Crist issued new clemency
rules ending that state's policy of permanent disenfranchisement for all felony
offenders. Also in April 2007, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed
a law streamlining the state's complicated restoration system by automatically
restoring voting rights upon completion of sentence.
This law also eliminated the requirement that
people in Maryland pay off any court-imposed fees and fines before being able
to register to vote.
And just last month, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear eliminated
some of the burdensome requirements his predecessor imposed on people trying to
get their voting rights restored. People with felony convictions are
disenfranchised for life in Kentucky
and can only regain their right to vote by receiving clemency from the
governor.
Beshear's predecessor had required all applicants to provide three character
references and write an essay explaining why they should get their right to
vote back. While Kentucky
still has a long way to go, Beshear's executive action was certainly an important step.
Still, millions of U.S.
citizens continue to be denied the right to vote. This year, Congress has
decided to address the issue on a national level. Senator Russ Feingold and
Representative John Conyers will soon introduce the Democracy
Restoration Act, a bill that seeks to restore voting rights in federal
elections to all Americans who have been released from prison and are living in
the community. In February, Senator Feingold, joined by former Republican
Congressman and Bush I cabinet member, Jack Kemp, wrote,
"once the criminal justice system has determined that [people] are ready
to return to the community, they should receive the rights and responsibilities
that come with that status, and should not continue to be relegated to
second-class citizenship."
The energy and optimism spreading across our country this election season is
palpable. But our democracy stands for nothing if not the fundamental tenet
that each citizen is entitled to one vote, and each vote counts the same
regardless of who casts it. The promise of our democracy will never be realized
if 4 million Americans remain disenfranchised. It is time to end this last
blanket barrier to the ballot box.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Voting Rights & Elections
By Judith Joffe-Block – 04/02/08
Next month's Kentucky Derby isn't the only upcoming speed event to watch in the
Bluegrass State. With less than two weeks left in the state legislative session, a bill to reform Kentucky's restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws is in a race against the clock.
Last night, House Bill 70 passed out of the House in the eleventh hour with a triumphant 80-14 margin. The bill proposes a ballot referendum to amend the state constitution to automatically restore voting rights to people upon completion of sentence. Thankfully, the final version of the bill bucked almost all of its opponents' attempts to saddle it with regressive amendments that would exempt certain classes of offenders and make voting rights contingent on paid restitution. But the bill languished for so long in the House it will need to sprint through the Senate in under two weeks if there is any shot of this question appearing on the ballot this November.
Kentucky shares with Virginia the woeful distinction of having the most restrictive
disenfranchisement laws in the country. Kentuckians with felony convictions lose their voting rights for life and can only regain their rights by receiving clemency from the governor. According to a 2006 report by the League of Women Voters 90% of Kentucky's disenfranchised population is not in prison and nearly 70% have completed their entire sentence. Kentucky also has the highest African-American disenfranchisement rate in the country—nearly one in every four African Americans in the state is denied the right to vote.
After just a few months in office, Governor Steve Beshear has already made important strides by eliminating some of the clemency requirements instituted by his predecessor. Since H.B. 70 would make voting rights restoration automatic, rather than dependent on the Governor's approval on a case by case basis, the bill is a much-needed next step. The bill has already received deserved endorsements from The Courier-Journal
editorial board and from American Probation and Parole Association executive director, Carl
Wicklund.
Next November could be a historic opportunity for Kentucky's democracy if voters are able to go to the polls to ease the state's voting rights restoration process. The Senate should do all it can to ensure that the bill glides across the finish line in time.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Voting Rights & Elections
By Judith Joffe-Block – 03/17/08
* Cross-posted from ReformNY
The
U.S. Senate’s passage by unanimous consent last week of the Second
Chance Act of 2007, which funds states and non-profits to provide job
training and other support services to the population leaving prison,
demonstrated that progressive reentry policies can unite both sides of
the aisle. It also reminded us of recent progress here in New York to
ease the reintegration of former offenders back into the community.
Like
the Second Chance Act, which had active support from prominent senators
from both parties, a New York bill dealing with notifying former
offenders about their right to vote seems to have similarly risen above
the political fray. The
Voting Rights Notification and Registration Act enjoys a Democratic sponsor in the Assembly, Rep. Keith Wright, and a Republican sponsor in the Senate, Sen. Dale Volker.
The
bill aims to correct the de facto disenfranchisement of thousands of
New Yorkers who have had criminal convictions in their past and are
unaware of their eligibility to vote. In New York, voting rights are
restored upon completion of maximum prison or parole sentence, while
the right to vote is never lost by those on probation, in jail awaiting
a conviction, or convicted of a misdemeanor. But people who are serving
parole sentences are prohibited from voting in this state, meaning that
some people who are under supervision in the community are ineligible,
while others are eligible to vote. This confusion about who can and
cannot vote means that thousands of eligible New York voters sit out
Election Day because they falsely believe they are banned from the
rolls. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that county offices of
the Board of Elections—the very place where the record should be set
straight—have been known to routinely provide misinformation about
voting rights eligibility. (A
survey
by the Brennan Center for Justice and Demos in 2006 revealed that
nearly one third of the state’s county election boards improperly asked
for documentation from former offenders before allowing them to
register to vote, and routinely misinformed probationers that they were
ineligible to vote).
The Voting Rights Notification and
Registration Act would establish protocols to notify convicted felons
of the status of their voting rights before, during, and after their
sentences. Correctional and parole agencies would be required to
provide voter registration forms to individuals upon completion of
their maximum prison or parole sentence. The Division of Probation and
Correctional Alternatives would become a voter registration agency, and
correctional facilities would be required to aid in the voting
procedures of qualified inmates. Furthermore, the bill attempts to
clear the haze of confusion surrounding voting rights eligibility by
tasking the Board of Elections with educating attorneys, judges,
election officials, probation and parole officers, and the public about
voting requirements and the new notice procedures.
As Glenn Martin of the Fortune Society pointed out in a recent El Diario
op-ed,
although efforts at changing the eligibility rules themselves have
often failed in the Legislature, the new governor does have the power
to change the law disenfranchising parolees through executive order.
But in the meantime, we’ll take bipartisan support of the Voting Rights
Notification and Registration Act as a step in the right direction.
Tags: Voting After Criminal Conviction
Page 1 of 2 pages 1 2 >
2 comments | Permalink