Disenfranchisement News: Florida ACLU Defends Voting Rights in Jail

(From The Sentencing Project)

Florida

Voting Rights in Jail

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida recently sent letters to the Supervisors of Elections and Sheriff’s offices of all 67 Florida counties, encouraging them to help facilitate voting for people in jail. Although individuals with felony convictions who have not had their voting rights restored may not vote in Florida – leaving 1 in 5 African Americans disenfranchised – those awaiting trial or serving a misdemeanor sentence may vote via absentee ballot.

“There is a lot of confusion out there on this issue, and many people who are incarcerated during elections and can vote may not know that they can, much less have access to resources to help them exercise this fundamental right,” stated Joyce Hamilton Henry, Director of Advocacy at the ACLU of Florida. “We want to make sure that not only do individuals in these facilities know what their rights are, but also that county officials are helping to facilitate these rights.” The ACLU encourages public officials to provide voter education materials and absentee ballot requests to eligible inmates to ensure they are able to exercise their right to vote.

Wyoming

Opportunity for Reform

In a recent interview with Wyofile, Linda Burt, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wyoming, said there is growing support among moderate Republicans and libertarians to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions after they have served their time.

Despite a 2003 voting reform, Burt argues that Wyoming has one of the worst rates of restoring voting rights for those disenfranchised post-sentence. The Sentencing Project reports that more than 25,000 people in Wyoming have lost their right to vote as the result of a felony conviction.  Currently, individuals convicted of a non-violent first-time felony must wait five years after completing their sentence before they can apply for rights restoration.  Since the 2003 reform, Wyoming has only restored the voting rights of 58 individuals with felony convictions.

Voting rights restoration is on the agenda this month for the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee, where committee members may choose to create a more transparent path to re-enfranchisement, or do nothing at all and wait to see the results of the election.

Burt says it all comes down to whether the Tea Party candidates, “who care very little about this issue,” win in November or whether the Republican or Libertarian candidates take the State House.

Kentucky

New voting rights bill in consideration for 2015

The Daily News reports that several bills have been pre-filed for consideration in the 2015 Kentucky legislative session that would place a constitutional amendment on the ballot, letting voters decide if individuals convicted of most felonies should automatically have their voting rights restored once their prison, parole, and probation sentences have been completed.

A similar bill, HB 70, was rejected by the state House earlier this year after the Republican-controlled Senate added several restrictions, including a five-year waiting period before voting rights could be restored. Senator Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green said, “There were those within the Senate that wouldn’t vote for it any other way.”

Kentuckians for the Commonwealth says a voting rights bill would help the 181,000 people who have completed their sentences regain their right to vote.

International

ECHR rules ban on prisoner voting violates human rights

In August, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the human rights of ten men incarcerated in Scotland had been violated when they were not allowed to vote in the 2009 European elections. The ECHR originally ruled in 2004 that a UK blanket ban on prisoner voting was unlawful, but over the past ten years, successive UK governments have refused to comply with the ruling. The Guardian reports that the prime minister believes “the final decision on prisoner voting should lie with the UK parliament and not Europe.”

As it stands now, convicted individuals serving prison sentences are not allowed to vote in the UK. The ECHR urges the government to “listen to its own cross-party parliamentary committee and remove the blanket ban on prisoner voting,” but remains patient and respectfully of parliamentary sovereignty.

Voting from behind bars in Ireland

A new book by Dr. Cormac Behan of the University of Sheffield School of Law Centre for Criminological Research, investigates the issue of voting in prison in the Republic of Ireland. Citizen Convicts: Prisoner, Politics and the Vote, explores the arguments regarding allowing incarcerated people to vote and concludes that “the legal position concerning the voting rights of the imprisoned reveals wider historical, political and social influences in the treatment of those confined in penal institutions.”