If you get out of jail, you should get to vote

by Mark Plotkin - 10/21/16 9:35 AM ET

The New York Times provided an urgently needed public service by printing an article which comprehensively informed the American citizens of a voter disenfranchisement practice that systematically goes after felons. Even when they have paid their debt to society, they are still excluded from the most essential rite of citizenship — voting.

{mosads}On Oct. 7 of this year, authors K.K. Rebecca and Jasmine Lee laid out the statistics that so graphically tell the story. They rely on a report issued by the Sentencing Project, an organization dedicated to criminal justice reform.

The numbers are astounding. There are 6.1 million U.S. citizens who will not be permitted to vote on Nov. 8. The qualifications for voting are determined by the states, and that is the problem.

Three closely watched swing states — Florida, Iowa and Virginia — have “some of the harshest laws,” as the Times notes. Unbelievably, they impose a lifetime ban on felons. Their voting rights can be restored on a case-by-case basis only by the governor or a court.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) attempted to restore the rights of every felon who had completed his sentence, but the Virginia state Supreme Court ruled he could not make such a unilateral and all-encompassing decision. McAuliffe, to his credit, has now pledged to validate his decision by doing exactly what the Virginia Supreme Court has prescribed.

This was an unusual action by McAuliffe — I really didn’t think he possessed the political courage to take such an action. Maybe he is growing in office.

On the other side of this issue is Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R). He made the following statement: “These are felons and we want to make sure people have turned their life around.” That sounds like “compassionate conservatism,” but it is just plain duplicitous, devious and, above all, bogus.

Scott and dozens of Republican state legislatures love this felon situation. It further and solidifies their unstated and covert goal to make sure that the people who will most likely not vote Republican are never allowed to vote. What it does signal was perfectly said by Christopher Uggen, a University of Minnesota professor who was the lead author of the Sentencing Project report. Read his words carefully and remember them:

“The message that comes across to them is: Yes, you have the responsibilities of a citizen now, but you’re basically still a second-class citizen because we are not permitting you to be engaged in the political process.”

Instead of welcoming back to society these individuals, the opposite is institutionalized: Your felon status is permanent. You are not included. You are forever excluded.

Florida, you would think, would be embarrassed by this number: 10 percent of Florida adults are ineligible to vote. (That was actually the Times’s headline for the Oct. 7 article.)

The estimate is that 600,000 people who have completed their sentences are still not allowed to vote. That number is mind-boggling — and shameful!

The question can be rightfully asked, why is this allowed to occur?

As the Times article clearly states, it has to do with one thing: race. “Across the nation, one in 13 African-American adults cannot vote because of a felony conviction,” Lai and Lee write.

What should be the remedy?

In my opinion, it’s clear and simple. And easily administered. When you serve your sentence and you are released, your voting rights should be immediately restored. Fourteen states do this. So should the rest of the country.

Right smack in the middle of the article is a map which, state by state, provides the percentage of blacks who cannot vote because they were convicted of a felony. Look at these figures: Kentucky (26.1 percent); Mississippi (15.9 percent); Alabama (15.1 percent), Wyoming (17.2 percent), Arizona (11.9 percent) and Nevada (11.8 percent).

This odious and ugly practice is allowed to continue because it is a stark political strategy that achieves its purpose.

Let’s talk in plain English. Over 90 percent of African-Americans vote Democratic. The GOP has decided to make sure that this subset of U.S. citizens will not vote. Why? Because they know they will, in great numbers, not vote for Republicans.

It’s so easy to wrap this around the mantle of some specious law-and-order theme, but that’s a false narrative. The practice has to stop.

We need a national voting rights qualifications act that establishes once and for all uniform, fair and inclusive standards. Leaving it to the individual states is wrong and the results are horrible and exclusionary. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 needs an immediate update and vast improvement.

Voting should be easy. What is going on now is a sham, patently undemocratic and un-American.