FELONY CONVICTIONS KEEP 13 PERCENT OF ADULT BLACK MEN FROM VOTING

WASHINGTON -(AP)- On Election Day, nearly 1.4 million voting-age black men
- -- more than one in eight -- will be ineligible to cast ballots because of
state laws that strip felons of the right to vote.

"Here we are, 50 years after the beginning of the civil rights movement, and
we actually have an increasing number of African-Americans who are
disenfranchised each year," said Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project, which
analyzed 1996 Justice Department statistics along with Human Rights Watch.

Disenfranchised black males account for 35 percent of all Americans now
barred from voting because of felony convictions. Two percent of all
Americans, or 3.9 million, have lost the right to vote, compared with 13
percent of adult black men.

State laws governing voter eligibility vary. Nine states impose a lifetime
voting ban on convicted felons. In 32 states, felons can vote after serving
their sentence and completing parole. Four states -- Massachusetts, Maine,
Utah and Vermont -- have no prohibition and allow prisoners to vote,
although Massachusetts voters will act on a ballot measure in November that
would strip prisoners of voting rights.

Six other states impose restrictions based on a felon's prior record or
parole status.

Civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Florida's
lifetime ban. The ban is unconstitutional because its disproportionate
effect on blacks makes the state law discriminatory, the lawsuit said.

Allen Beck of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics declined to assess
the accuracy of the 13 percent estimate, but Curtis Gans, director of the
nonpartisan Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, said he
believes the figure is accurate.

Beck said that, based on current rates of incarceration, 28.5 percent of
black males will likely serve time in a state or federal prison for a felony
conviction, a rate seven times that for white males.

A state-by-state breakdown of data from The Sentencing Project, a private
group that favors sentencing reform, shows that in 17 states the estimated
percentage of disenfranchised black men is even higher than 13 percent.

In Florida and Alabama, for instance, the figure is 31 percent, while in
Mississippi it is 29 percent. In Virginia, 25 percent of otherwise eligible
black men cannot vote.

Those four states impose a lifetime ban on voting by felons. The other five
states with lifetime bans are Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, and
Wyoming.

After declining in the early 1970s, the prison population in the United
States has grown dramatically. More than 2 million people were behind bars
last year, according to the Justice Department.

Crime rates have been dropping since 1993, but longer sentences, especially
for drug crimes and violent crimes, help account for higher prison
populations, with drug-related sentences falling disproportionately on
blacks.

In Delaware, where lawmakers in June approved a bill that amends the state
constitution to restore voting rights for some felons, proponents argued
that barring felons from voting after they leave prison dates back to a time
when only white, male landowners were allowed to cast ballots.

The new Delaware law grants voting rights to all those except murderers, sex
offenders and those convicted of felony bribery. Felons there and in
Pennsylvania must now wait five years after completing their sentence before
seeking restored voting rights.

David Bositis, senior political analyst of the Joint Center for Political
and Economic Studies, a think tank that researches policy issues concerning
blacks and other minorities, said most Americans favor restoring voting
rights to felons after they've served their time, citing a survey in which
73 percent of respondents called voting "a fundamental right of
citizenship."

The Rev. Jesse Jackson called disenfranchisement "taxation without
representation," saying the issue goes to the heart of the civil rights
movement, which fought for equal access to citizenship for all Americans.

"Whether you're black, white or brown, once you serve your sentence to
society, you should have your vote restored," he said. "If you don't have
your vote restored, it's a life sentence."

But victims' advocates say felons -- especially those convicted of violent
crimes -- should lose their right to vote.

Sam Rieger, president of Survivors of Homicide, based in Wethersfield,
Conn., said voting rights are likely irrelevant to most felons.

"Offering that carrot is not going to accomplish anything," he said.