Pubdate: Oct 24 1998
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Contact:  1998 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Author: Warren Richey, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BLACK MEN HIT HARD BY VOTING BANS FOR CONVICTS

In some states, one-quarter have lost - for good - the right to vote, new
study shows.

As campaign workers toil to get out the vote this election season, there is
a large and growing constituency across the United States they can pretty
much write off: convicted felons.

It has nothing to do with the fact that many of these men and women live
behind bars and are unable to get to the polls. Rather, the problem is that
most automatically lost their right to vote when they were found guilty.

For many, it is a right they will never regain.

Close to 4 million Americans will be excluded from the political process
this year, including roughly 13 percent of the country's black adult men.

In seven states, 25 percent of African-American men are permanently barred
from casting a ballot. In two states - Florida and Alabama - nearly
one-third of all African-American men can't vote.

These are among the findings of a report released yesterday by The
Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch that calls on lawmakers to repeal
felon-disenfranchisement laws.

"Disenfranchisement laws in the US are a vestige of medieval times, when
offenders were banished from the community," the report says. Instead, laws
should attempt to facilitate full rehabilitation of felons as productive
taxpaying citizens who have a stake in the democratic process.

Current policies, the report warns, are creating a huge pool of political
outcasts in America. "We know of no other country in the world that
permanently disenfranchises ex-offenders," says Jamie Fellner, coauthor of
the report and associate counsel at New York's Human Rights Watch.

"It really offends the average American's concept of justice," says Mark
Mauer, assistant director at The Sentencing Project in Washington and a
report coauthor. "We are raised to believe that once you have
paid your debt to society you are free to resume your normal activities."

Disenfranchisement laws, which in some states date back to Colonial times,
are supported in large part because they are seen as another way to punish
criminals, beyond fining them and locking them up.

But the attraction goes beyond punishment. Some supporters are concerned
that convicts and ex-felons might determine the outcome of elections. On a
national level, this seems unlikely. But at the local level, judges and
sheriffs sometimes win elections by a handful of votes. A
get-tough-on-crime sheriff might have a hard time being reelected if all
those inmates and ex-convicts suddenly become voters.

Critics say these concerns are outweighed by the detrimental effect such
laws have on the democratic process. Laws that seek to guarantee or prevent
a certain outcome at the polls are inherently undemocratic, they say.

They also point to the long-term negative impact such laws are having in
some minority communities, where young men are being locked up at record
rates in a war on drugs that disproportionately targets inner-city
neighborhoods. The result is that African-Americans and Latinos are
disproportionately losing their right to vote, causing a huge drain on
potential political power at a time when minority communities are
struggling to assert themselves at the polls.

Prior to losing the vote, however, few inmates exercised that privilege.
In Massachusetts, one of four states that still give inmates the right to
vote, less than 10 percent of inmates are registered. In Utah, less than 5
percent of inmates are registered, and only 60 inmates cast ballots in the
last election. But since a measure to take away the right to vote was put
on the November ballot, opponents say, the proportion of registered inmates
there has jumped to 30 percent.

Some analysts believe the large-scale disenfranchisement under way in the
African-American community in particular violates the Voting Rights Act and
equal-protection clauses of the Constitution. But few elected officials are
willing to take on a cause that would likely be portrayed by political
opponents as an effort to empower convicted murderers, rapists, and drug
dealers.

"In the political climate we live in today, no politician and no group of
constituents are going to go to bat for these folks, and that is why the
courts have to do something about it," says Andrew Shapiro, a lawyer at the
Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.  "This is a
classic case of why we need courts to act as guardians of our civil rights."

To date, no one has successfully challenged disenfranchisement laws in
court. But Mr. Mauer and Ms. Fellner hope that the report will raise
national awareness and spark new legal and legislative challenges.

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