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April 18, 2008
Oregon: State Diminishes 'More Liberal than Most'
Oregon: State Diminishes 'More Liberal than Most'
In March, a law was passed further disenfranchising Oregon residents. Thousands of individuals in Oregon's county jails are now ineligible to vote due to a new provision of House Bill 3638. Oregon law does not allow those incarcerated individuals to vote, but does restore voting rights to those on probation. "Previously, it was just individuals in the Department of Corrections" who couldn't vote, said Brenda Bayes, the deputy director of the state Elections Division in a Statesman Journal article . "This bill in the 2008 legislative session expanded that to also include felons in the custody of county jails. You can still register to vote, you just can't vote while you're incarcerated." According to the article, 35,000 formerly incarcerated individuals and probationers are allowed to vote, in addition to about 600 psychiatric and forensic patients at Oregon State Hospital who were charged with felony offenses.
From the Sentencing Project
Posted by lois at April 18, 2008 03:54 PM