In Florida alone, about a million citizens of voting age will be prohibited from voting this year — and for the rest of their lives. Florida is one of four states (Kentucky, Iowa and Virginia are the others) in which felons and former felons are banned from voting. In all, 29 states take voting rights away from felons who are out on probation or parole, and every state but Maine and Vermont bans voting from felons currently incarcerated.
Of the millions of disenfranchised voters, an estimated 36% are black. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld disenfranchisement laws in 1974, deciding that are not overtly racist (though they later struck down an Alabama law allowing disenfranchisement for “moral turpitude,” ruling that this was an overt means of denying blacks the vote).
So we’re dealing with three issues here: should felons be deprived of the right to vote? should a law be considered racist if it disproportionately affects members of one race? and should this be a state-by-state decision at all?
© 2012 by Bill Bickel unless otherwise noted.
“striken”??
This is clearly a law to punish former felons. It certainly isn’t intended as a deterrent. “I’m not going to commit this crime because then I won’t be able to vote” is not something you would likely hear. I’m all for prisoners giving up rights while incarcerated, but unless a law is enacted for former felons as a safety issue, there is no reason to continue punishing after the time is served.
I think the only felony for which a person should lose voting rights is egregious election fraud. I qualify it because you know they’d love to make it a felony to make a minor mistake on your application, like putting “St.” when it’s actually “Ave.” By this rule, those folks in Ohio who distributed flyers in certain neighborhoods saying that the polling day was Wednesday, those folks should be banned forever from voting.
I’d go further and say these people should have gone to prison: why is voter fraud of this sort treated as a prank?
Because it’s Republicans who are doing it.
Oh, I wasn’t dismissing that part, just that they’d also forever lose the right they tried to suppress. What they did is treason. The right to vote and have your vote count is the heart of the constitution.
I honestly don’t understand why they shouldn’t be allowed to vote even while they’re in prison. After all, it’s not like politicians themselves are of sound moral character. (A few are, but that’s not the point.) I guess it’s meant to dehumanize the prisoners, but I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Hell, I wouldn’t mind if Timothy McVeigh got to vote, and I’d have given him his lethal injection myself.
A democratic government should not be given the authority to disenfranchise citizens under any circumstances. It makes it far too easy for legislators to use the law as a bludgeon to silence the opposition.
Agreed. Because you just know the day will come that “suspected terrorists” will be deprived of the right to vote. Of course, the government won’t have to tell them exactly what they’re suspected of…
Regarding the second question, how many explicitly racist laws are there currently on the books? Even Florida is smart enough to wrap their voting laws in pseudo-worries about voter fraud, when the known (and intended) outcome is to deny certain demographics their vote. So I would rephrase your question as “If a law’s intent is not racist, and it disproportionately affects some races, should it be struck down for that reason alone?” Of course, the problem here is determining the true “intent” of a law. In most cases this is not too difficult – murder, assault, theft, etc. have a pretty clear, race neutral intent (although that is not to say that the actual application of the law will be untainted by racial motivations). Voter laws, on the other hand, are not so transparent. One of the few ways of determining if a voter law is racist is seeing if it disproportionately affects a race. So, should crack laws be overturned because they overwhelmingly affect Blacks? Probably not, although it might raise some red flags about how the law is being applied. Should a voter registration law be struck down if it disproportionately denies a specific demographic the vote? I’d say yes, unless you could provide some compelling evidence that it was preventing serious voter fraud.
Florida does not permanently bar felons from voting. There is a clemency process to restore their voting rights. The issue is that it is a cumbersome and confusing process.
Virginia as well; but being barred for life is the default in both states, and in both states the process for regaining the right to vote is, as you say, cumbersome and confusing; so all practical purposes, barred for life.
This is happening in Florida? Who’s really surprised at that? (In 2000, quite a few Black people were barred from voting because they committed crimes in 2002 and 2004.) (No, that is not a typo.)
And all of this talk about Florida being a “swing state” is … well, I shouldn’t really talk like that …
Florida couldn’t hold a fair election if their statehood depended on it.
If the rest of the nation would stop sending their crooks down here to be politicians, it wouldn’t be so bad.
Governors from Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas…
Okay, Lawton Chiles was born here, but…
The least you could do is keep them down there … Katherine Harris has been messing up Arizona’s elections for a while now.
The real statistic is that people in worse economic conditions are more likely to commit crimes, and a disproportionate number of black folks are in bad economic conditions. Then when they’re caught, they’re less likely to be able to afford legal help that’s good enough to plea them down from a felony. Hence, higher rate of felony convictions.
The problem with these voter ID and vote blocking laws is that they not only don’t address the real issue, they can make it worse. If felons who have done their time aren’t allowed to vote, it contributes to their feeling that the system’s rigged against them and they have no voice. The objective is to get people into the system, not to block them from being a contributor forever.
I voted to deny voting for incarcerated felons and those on parole, but I think I’d change that to only those currently incarcerated. If you broke the law, you don’t get to vote on changing it until you are deemed fit to return to society, even if with certain restrictions.
I voted NO on striking down the law if it disproportionately affects a certain group – but only in the context of dealing with criminals. I agree with Padraig – you have to deal with the underlying socio-economic situation to eliminate the disparities, not soften the law to coddle a particular group.
I voted to have the Federal gov. set voting laws/standards only for federal/presidential elections, but perhaps if we had uniform voting laws we could weed out these more sinister voting laws that individual states dream up to control the voting population. And while we’re at it, how about federal standards for vote-recounts? NO MORE HANGING CHADS!
Is there any restriction on felons financing or otherwise influencing the process short of actually voting?
For example: If Bernie Madoff turns out to have a few million squirreled away, can he legally spend it for candidates he feels likely to pardon him? Or can Jerry Sandusky organize any remaining faithful alumni to lobby against child molestation laws?