Voter Registration Drives Focus on Felons

Civil rights lawyer Reggie Mitchell, profiled in The Washington Post, is one of many people, primarily Democrats, helping to register ex-felons in several states including Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. Mitchell and the Florida group he heads are “motivated by the belief that former offenders have been unfairly disenfranchised for decades.”

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist helped change Florida state law on felon voting after his election in 2006, allowing felons to vote “as long as they have no charges pending, have paid restitution and have completed probation.”

Maine and Vermont are the only two states that place zero limitations on convicted felons’ voting rights, but groups like the NAACP and ACLU are helping to relax restrictions in many states in time for the presidential election in November, according to the Post.

 

Though neither of the presidential candidates’ camps is involved in felon registration, Michael Freeman of Florida’s The Ledger argues that this summer’s efforts will most help Ill. Sen. Barack Obama, hypothesizing that the majority of felons will vote Democrat.

But moves by Republicans, including Crist in 2007 and then-governor of Texas George W. Bush in 1997, have demonstrated, as the Sentencing Project puts it, a “reconsideration” of the “wisdom” of felon disenfranchisement laws and the “interests of full democratic participation.”

The Florida voting crisis in 2000 and 2004 included confusion and errors about felon votes. In 2004, it is believed some voters were mistakenly put on felon lists, and felons whose rights had not been restored were given the ability to vote, leading to several law suits. Gov. Crist’s reform ensures that more than 115,000 felons will be eligible this year.