The Sentencing Project Disenfranchisement News: International group critiques U.S. Policies

 A REPRINT from The Sentencing Project

International group critiques U.S. policies

 

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) sent a team of observers to monitor the 2012 U.S. general elections. The mission assessed the election implementation procedures’ compliance with OSCE commitments and other international standards as well as national legislation.

In its assessment of the impact of felony disenfranchisement on the elections, the OSCE’s final report notes that “some 5.9 million citizens are estimated to be disenfranchised due to a criminal conviction, including 2.6 million who have served their sentence.” As a result, the report finds the U.S. to fall short of OSCE standards: “The deprivation of the right to vote is a severe penalty and the current restrictions on prisoner and ex-prisoner voting rights lack proportionality and are not in line with paragraphs 7.3 and 24 of the 1990 OSCE Copenhagen Document and other international standards.”

 

Israel’s Prisons facilitate voting on Election Day

 

During Israel’s national elections on January 22, the Israel Prison Service allowed 10,800 inmates and detainees to vote at voting stations established in 31 IPS facilities across the country. Voter ID regulations were less stringent than in previous years, when a state ID, driver’s license, or passport was required to vote; this year, prisoner cards were also accepted forms of identification. Voter turnout in Israel’s prisons was 21 percent in the 2009 elections.