Voting rights changes could swing 2012 election

Disenfranchisement News

(A reprint from The Sentencing Project)

Florida

 

Voting rights changes could swing 2012 election

 

In a New York Times opinion, Erika L. Wood, a professor at New York Law School, says that “who gets to vote in Florida could determine who will win the election.” Because of recent changes to the state’s voting laws, far fewer people may be able to vote in November’s elections. In addition to restricting groups that register new voters and cutting the early voting period, new administrative decisions roll back voting rights for
many people with previous felony convictions. After former Governor Charlie Crist had eased voting restrictions on persons with felony convictions, current Governor Rick Scott
not only suspended those reforms but made the restrictions even harsher than they were under Crist’s predecessor, Jeb Bush.

Under the new policy, even those with nonviolent felony convictions “must wait five years after they complete all terms of their sentences before they are allowed to apply for restoration of civil rights; the clock resets if an individual is arrested, including for a misdemeanor, during the five-year waiting period.” Only then can persons even apply to have their rights restored, and they must appear in person for a hearing with the clemency board. If an applicant is denied, he or she must wait two years before they can apply again.

International Association of Chiefs of Police favors restoring voting rights

In an opinion piece in the Tallahassee Democrat, Walter McNeil, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and Mark Schlakman, senior program director at the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, express support for enfranchising persons with felony convictions who have completed their sentences. The argument focuses specifically on Florida, where McNeil is a chief of police, and the state’s voting rights restoration policy under Governor Rick Scott. According to the authors, Florida’s disenfranchisement law “disproportionately impacts minorities, given the demographics of Florida’s prison population” and the restoration process has “some of the most restrictive criteria in the nation for ex-felon civil rights
restoration.”

Washington, DC

Eligible voters in jail likely to miss chance to vote

According to AFRO.com, while persons in jail for misdemeanors or awaiting trial are eligible to vote, the vast majority of them will not. Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project notes that across the country, “the 700,000 eligible inmates in jails don’t have access to voter registration materials or absentee ballots.” There are approximately 2,500 persons in the DC jail, and while 90% are eligible to vote, Charlie Sullivan of Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants says that “we have never witnessed more than 400 inmates voting for an election cycle.” However, the DC jail voting procedure is in fact one of the best in the country, according to Sullivan, but “there are many things that need to be done so that eligible voters inside jails have all the same opportunities to make informed choices and allowed to vote.”

Connecticut

UConn newspaper argues for restoring voting rights

In an opinion written in The Daily Campus, Sam Tracy argues that Connecticut should lead the way for other states by restoring voting rights for all persons disenfranchised because of previous or current felony convictions. The author takes the position that because disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect people of color and of low-income, “their implementation discriminates against these groups, altering electoral and policy outcomes, which may further enforce racial disparities in our justice system and other aspects of American life.”

California

Criminal justice scholars file amicus brief in support of voting rights

Leading criminal justice scholars filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in the case of All Of Us Or None v. Bowen. Following the California Criminal Justice Realignment, which mandates that “inmates convicted of non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual offenses will serve their sentence in county jails, rather than in state prisons,” many persons in jails who are serving time for felony convictions are barred from voting. The petitioners in the case argue that this is in violation of the state constitution, which only prohibits voting by persons convicted of felonies in prison. The brief argues that further enfranchising persons in jail “would increase democracy and encourage participation of underserved low-income communities and communities of color in the political and civic process.”