National ACLU News
ACLU Reports Show Widespread Confusion About the Voting Rights of
People with Criminal Records
Two reports recently released by the ACLU highlight
problems that endanger the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of eligible
voters nationally in a presidential election year.
The first report, “De
Facto Disenfranchisement,” reveals widespread misunderstanding among
state elections officials of laws governing the right to vote of citizens
with felony convictions.
Some of the more alarming findings in "De Facto
Disenfranchisement" come from states that could prove to be pivotal in
this November's presidential election. In Ohio, for example, 30 percent of elections
officials did not know if individuals with misdemeanor convictions could vote
– and they can. And more than half of the elections officials
interviewed in Colorado
– a state where 46,000 people are currently on probation – did not know that
people on probation could vote.
A second ACLU report, “Voting
with a Criminal Record: How Registration Forms Frustrate Democracy,”
finds that voter registration forms in states across the country fail to
clearly explain the eligibility of voters with criminal records.
"Unless citizens receive accurate information about
their voting rights from those sources where they should be able to get it,
large swaths of eligible voters stand to be denied their rightful access to
the voting booth," said Laleh Ispahani of the ACLU's Racial Justice
Program.
5.3 million American citizens are ineligible to vote
because of criminal convictions. As many as 4 million of these people are out
of prison – living, working, raising families in the community – yet cannot
vote by law because of past convictions.
The reports make clear, however, that this is only half
the story. Untold hundreds of thousands of additional voters are discouraged
from registering and voting because they receive incorrect or misleading
information – or no information at all – from elections and criminal justice
officials and voter registration forms.
The ACLU urges regular trainings of elections and criminal
justice officials and dissemination of clear and accurate information to the
public. Both reports also call for clearer laws that provide swift
restoration of voting rights to disqualified felons as soon as they are
released from prison.
Additional information about the ACLU's work on felony
disenfranchisement can be found online at: www.aclu.org/righttovote
ACLU
of Alabama
News
ACLU-AL’s Felon Voting Rights Case
Dismissed by Judge; Confusion Remains
On October 8, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Tracey
McCooey held a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction in Baker v. Chapman, a case brought by
the ACLU of Alabama and the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project on behalf of
Alabamians convicted of felonies who wish to exercise the right to vote.
The Plaintiffs in the case asserted the following: first,
only the legislature may define which felonies are disenfranchising; second,
under no circumstances may county Boards of Registrars disenfranchise voters
for a felony conviction that neither the Legislature nor the Attorney General
has said is disenfranchising; and third, refusing to restore voting rights
until all legal financial obligations are paid unfairly discriminates based
on income.
The Plaintiffs asked the Court to enjoin Registrars from
disqualifying voters unless they have been convicted of one of the 15
felonies identified by the Legislature as disqualifying in the 2003 voter
restoration law. Plaintiffs take the
position that the 2005 Attorney General’s expansion of this list is
impermissible but, assuming the Court declined to issue an injunction based
on the legislative list, Plaintiffs asked the Court to issue an injunction
prohibiting Registrars from disenfranchising individuals with convictions
that are on neither the Legislature’s list nor the Attorney General’s list.
In the few days
leading up to the hearing, the media reported that the Governor’s Office and
Secretary of State had asked the Administrative Office of Courts (AOC) to
develop a list of disenfranchising felonies in the fall of 2007. The AOC
agreed and developed a list of 70 disqualifying felonies. AOC staff have now
stated publicly - and in court - that they were lead to believe the
Governor’s Office was using their list when, in fact, the Governor’s Office
and a private firm developed its own list of 480 disqualifying felonies. The
Governor’s Office also generated lists of individuals allegedly convicted of
these 480 felonies over the last twenty years. These lists were sent to
Circuit Courts around the state which shared them with Registrars who, in
turn, sent letters to tens of thousands of registered voters telling them
their names had been removed from the voting rolls.
It subsequently
became clear that the lists shared with Registrars contained many errors. In Cullman County for example, over 35% of the
names on the list were people who were convicted of misdemeanors only. When
the private firm the Governor’s Office contracted with to do this work
corresponded with Registrars about their error they said it was up to the
Registrars whether or not to notify people that a mistake had been made and
that they were indeed eligible to vote. Counsel for Plaintiffs put on
evidence at the hearing that in Montgomery
County Registrars had
chosen not to notify improperly disqualified voters that their names had been
restored to the voting rolls.
Judge McCooey has issued a ruling against the Plaintiffs
on the grounds that they did not have standing to bring the case. We
respectfully disagree and are now considering our options for moving forward
on these fundamental questions of democracy.
Thank you for your continued support of civil liberties
in Alabama!
Olivia Turner
Executive
Director, ACLU of Alabama
207 Montgomery Street, Suite 910, Montgomery, Alabama 36104
T: 334-262-0304 | F: 334-269-5666 |
info@aclualabama.org
www.aclualabama.org
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