Last Thursday, August 6th marked the 44th anniversary of the
Voting Rights Act. Some positive things
can certainly be said about the legacy of the VRA, which eliminated poll taxes
and literacy tests and contributed within a few years of its passage to huge
jumps in voter registration rates among African Americans.
The 4 decades since African Americans were granted the right to vote under
the VRA have included many milestones, not the least of which was recent
election of an African American president and a record breaking turnout in that
election, of African American women voters.
Yet concerns about voter discrimination continue under the auspices of
criminal disenfranchisement.
According to a 2008
ACLU/Brennan Center report, as a whole, approximately 5.3 million U.S.
citizens are barred from voting as a result of a criminal conviction, and 4 million
of those are currently living, working, and raising families in our communities. Because of the
disproportional representation of African American men in the criminal justice
system, those laws and policies that exclude citizens from their fundamental
right to vote on the basis of conviction of a crime inherently disenfranchise disproportionately
more Black men.[1]
African American men have been
disenfranchised at seven times the national average, with an average of 13% of
African-American men having lost the right to vote. Shockingly, in three states, over 20 percent
of the African-American voting-age population is disenfranchised and according
to current estimates, almost one third (3 in 10) of the next generation of
African-American men will lose the right to vote during their lifetime.
In addition to discriminatory impact, criminal
disenfranchisement laws are rooted in discriminatory intent. As
explained by Erika Wood, head of the Brennan Center’s Right to Vote project:
“Let's be clear, these
laws were put in place right alongside poll taxes and literacy tests. In the
late 1800s, as part of larger backlash against the adoption of the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, criminal
disenfranchisement laws spread throughout the country. At the same time, states
expanded their criminal codes to punish offenses that they believed freed
slaves were most likely to commit, including vagrancy, petty larceny and
bigamy. This targeted criminalization and criminal disenfranchisement combined
to produce the legal loss of voting rights, which effectively suppressed the
power of African Americans for decades.”
Here in Maine, we can be proud of being one
of only two states (Vermont being the other) that never disenfranchises felons. This policy has broad support, even from law enforcement who understand that continuing to disfranchise individuals after
release from prison doesn't reduce crime. In fact, allowing people with felony convictions to
vote encourages civic engagement, strengthens the base of our democracy, and may even reduce recidivism by encouraging community investment. In fact, one study found
that former offenders who voted were half as likely to be re-arrested
as those who did not.
The American Probation and Parole Association; Association of
Paroling Authorities International; the National Black Police
Association; and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement
Executives are just some of the law enforcement organizations that have
expressed support for laws ensuring that people with past felony
convictions are allowed to vote.
But in the rest of the
country, the laws governing felons right to vote in state and federal elections
are varied and restrictive. Forty-eight States and the District of
Columbia deprive convicted offenders of the right to vote while they are in
prison; 35 States prevent convicted offenders from voting while on parole and
30 of these States also disenfranchise felony probationers. Most severe, in 10 States, a conviction can
result in lifetime disenfranchisement.
The
serious equal protection and due process implications of extensive yet piecemeal
felony disenfranchisement supported the need for a federal legislative
solution. On July 26th, Senator Russell
Feingold and Representative John Conyers introduced the Democracy Restoration
Act. The DRA would establish a federal
standard to restore voting rights in federal elections to nearly 4 million
Americans who have been released from prison and are living in the community; ensure
that probationers never lose their right to vote in federal elections; and notify
people about their right to vote in federal elections.
It is hard to overstate the broad reaching and long term impacts of policies
which result in effectively silencing or stifling the voice of a significant
group in the electoral process. As the
Supreme Court has indicated, "[n]o right is more precious in a free
country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws
under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic,
are illusory if the right to vote is undermined."
To Learn More And Take Action:
- Check out the ACLU fact sheet on the DRA;
- Read the ACLU/Brennan Center report, and
- Send a message to Congress urging them to pass the Democracy Restoration Act by going
[1] While
the focus here is on African American men, these policies also prevent people
who are disproportionately minority, disproportionately mentally ill, disproportionately
substance dependent, and disproportionately poor from exercising their
fundamental right to a voice in the electoral process.