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Why Can't Ex-Felons Vote? On Election Day it will not matter to some 4.7 million Americans whether
they are Republicans, Democrats, independents or whether they have an
opinion on anything at all. Under various state laws, they are barred
from voting because they have felony records. This includes not just prison
inmates (48 states), parolees (33 states) and probationers (29 states)
but also a large number of people -- one third of the disenfranchised
in all -- who are off parole and "free." Minorities are hit
particularly hard by these state laws: They deny 13 percent of African
American men the vote. Incarceration in America is up 600 percent since 1974, and the absence
of this fast-growing shadow population has been altering the nation's
politics. The 14th Amendment permits states to deny the vote "for participation
in rebellion, or other crime." And it can be argued that prisoners
should not vote; after all, the purpose of prison is to deny freedom.
But with ex-cons, the argument shifts. Some say those who break the law lack the trustworthiness to make it.
Todd Gaziano of the Heritage Foundation argues that felons might form
some kind of "anti-law-enforcement bloc" and elect bad officials.
But last year Alabama Republican Party Chairman Marty Connors stated a
bald truth: "As frank as I can be," he said, "we're opposed
to [restoring voting rights] because felons don't tend to vote Republican."
He is right: People with low incomes, low education or minority status
-- all benchmarks of convict populations -- vote Democratic 65 to 90 percent
of the time. Another bald fact: Many disenfranchisement laws trace to the mid-1800s,
when they were crafted to bar blacks with even minor criminal records
from polls. Today this poisonous legal lineage tells not only in the South,
which retains the most repressive statutes, but in states such as New
York, where ex-parolees theoretically get their rights back but in reality
encounter local election officials who demand discharge papers that don't
exist, give misleading information and find other reasons to turn them
away. A class-action lawsuit in New York charges that this system bars
so many voters in high-crime neighborhoods that the districts effectively
have lost their voice. In Florida, where many felons are barred forever
unless the governor personally decides otherwise, 8 percent of adults
cannot vote -- including one in four black men. These numbers may matter only in close elections -- but those do happen.
According to one convincing study done at the University of Minnesota
at Minneapolis, George W. Bush would have lost Florida by 80,000 votes
in 2000 had ex-felons been allowed to vote -- even assuming most of would
not have bothered to vote and a third would have voted Republican. The
same study finds that since 1978, seven Republican senators would have
lost close elections -- meaning that if everyone were allowed to vote,
Democrats would now probably control the Senate. But Democrats, too, have
turned their backs on this population. They have failed to stand up for
restoration of rights because they're afraid Republicans will reflexively
play the "soft on crime" card. To condemn millions to eternal political silence is to stab our democracy
in the heart, and to provide cause for bitterness and alienation. Felons
may face many other disabilities: They cannot sit on juries, serve as
teachers, firefighters or -- often -- even barbers or plumbers. They cannot
receive food stamps or live in public housing. Add to all this the knowledge
that whatever they do, no matter how much they have changed, their voices
will never be heard in the public arena. Does this sound like a prescription for more crime? It certainly undermines
a basic tenet of our system of justice: that the weight of punishment
is tempered with the hope of rehabilitation. And it prevents us from having
a real electorate. (That "anti-law enforcement bloc" notwithstanding,
we've managed very nicely to elect plenty of criminals to office without
any help from ex-felons). Most people know this is wrong. Eighty percent responding to a July 2002
Harris poll said ex-felons should have their rights restored automatically;
60 percent would include current parolees, too. © 2004 The Washington Post Company Back to Official Viewpoints Page
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