by Jonathan Arogeti
While a recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice has received wide publicity for spotlighting new state laws that have the potential to suppress access to the polls, the report also highlights the perennial issue of felon disfranchisement. “Many people don’t know that when it comes to voting, your rights are not automatically restored if you’re a felon,” said Nicole Austin-Hillery, the director and counsel of the center’s D.C. office during a video interview with ACSblog.
To combat this disenfranchisement, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced the Democracy Restoration Act, which would immediately restore voting rights in federal elections for individuals who have served their time in prison for a felony.
Austin-Hillery points to two states, Florida and Iowa, whose felon voting law have “retrogress[ed].” The same day Republican Gov. Terry Branstad assumed office, he rescinded a law that automatically restores voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences. In 2005, then-Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack issued the opposite order.
Two months after assuming his office, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott announced new rules that required a Clemency Board to review all applications and revoked the automatic restoration of voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences.
Austin-Hillery also points to Kentucky and Virginia, two states where former felons practically “never get [their] right to vote restored.” The Commonwealth of Virginia required many “draconian, cumbersome steps” to restore the rights to vote, including individually petitioning the Governor. It “really goes against the tenets of democracy,” laments Austin-Hillery.
Watch the full interview with Austin-Hillery below.
Disenfranchisement of Individuals Adjudicated Felons
We have created an underclass in this Country. Not only do we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. We punish them in perpetuity, making them permanently civilly disabled. The System denies individuals who have served their sentences from housing, jobs and education benefits. Our criminal justice system is content to "eat its own," is unbalanced and no longer remotely close to rendering "objective justice."
The current Administration refuses to acknowledge the requirements that a voter must present an ID to vote. So an illegal alien can vote, but a natural born citizen who supposedly paid his /her debt to society cannot. No one knows exactly how many criminal laws/violations there are. The Justice Department tried counting them, but gave up. Congress recently enacted another 450 criminal laws that have nothing to do with violence or children that are considered to be a felony.
We label individuals as a felon, a felon is not a racial, ethnic, religious, or other cultural group. Its time that society distinguish between violent crimes, and lawyer generated rhetoric. Felon can mean, freedom, equality, liberty, under one nation. It should not mean a lifetime of prejudice, rejection, and poverty.
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