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July 24, 2008
VA: Restore the right of felons to vote
Restore the right of felons to vote
Edward Hailes Jr.
Hailes is a senior attorney at Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization in Washington, D.C.
No single existing voting-rights inequity seems a starker injustice than the plight of people with felony convictions. These people, of course, aren't just murderers and muggers. Three out of every five felony convictions don't lead to jail time, and there's no clear line you have to cross to earn one.
Taking away the right to vote for life is analogous, some commentators have suggested, to the medieval practice of "civil death," where severe violations of society's social code led to complete loss of citizenship rights.
Contrary to popular belief, felony disenfranchisement laws are not part of the criminal justice system. Instead, they are state election laws, enacted by state legislatures and governors or hardwired into constitutions. Losing the right to vote after a felony conviction in Virginia is not in any way part of a criminal sentence -- it is a collateral consequence dictated by state law.
In essence, people with felony convictions lose their right to vote because of the intersection of two systems -- the election law system and the criminal justice system.
Virginia is one of only two states (Kentucky is the other) that permanently takes away the voting rights of all individuals with felony records, barring personal intervention by the governor.
The good news is Gov. Tim Kaine has pledged to expedite the review process for those petitioners who are eligible (nonviolent felons) to submit a one-page application by Aug. 1 in order to regain their voting rights and to register to vote in time to participate in the historic presidential election in November 2008 and beyond.
Many disenfranchisement laws were established to keep blacks from voting in former slave states. There is a movement afoot in Virginia to ameliorate the disempowering impact of felony disenfranchisement.
Three out of four Virginia voters think it is important to protect voting rights for all people, including those who have committed a crime, and most Virginia voters favor restoring voting rights to people who have been convicted of a felony after they have served their full sentence and completed all conditions of their punishment.
The commonwealth should change in the direction of automatic restoration after people with felony convictions have served their time.
The labyrinth of rules and regulations for re-enfranchisement in the commonwealth needs to end. Advancement Project's work in Virginia has shown us the sobering reality of the plethora of seemingly irrational obstacles to the voting process confronting people with felony convictions who have completed their debt to society.
The spotlight is now on the bureaucrats and the politicians who created and are responsible for administering these systems that unfairly keep people from voting.
The racially tainted history of felony disenfranchisement laws ought to make citizens of the commonwealth of all ideological persuasions reconsider their value in our democracy.
Felony disenfranchisement laws are undemocratic and unjust in denying citizens their political voice. And in doing so, these repugnant laws not only strip citizens of legitimate self-empowerment, but make a mockery of those of us who have faith that our democratic system can spawn a just society.
Advancement Project applauds Kaine for taking a step in the right direction in exercising his authority to restore voting rights to Virginia citizens who have already paid their debt to society.
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/170152
Posted by lois at July 24, 2008 06:15 PM