ACLU REPRESENTATIVE SAYS FELONS DESERVE VOTING RIGHTS

Felons across the country are unfairly denied the right to vote, said Laleh
Ispahani, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights
Project and leader of Right to Vote: A National Campaign to End Felony
Disenfranchisement.

Maine and Vermont are the only states that don't take away any of
criminals' voting rights, while 14 states permanently disenfranchise
felons and ex-felons, Ispahani said in a lecture Monday night. She
called the nation a "crazy quilt" of policies, with state laws ranging
from immediate restoration of the right to vote upon release from
prison to permanent disenfranchisement.

The issue is particular to the United States, according to Ispahani.
"We entered the 21st century with possibly the most restrictive
disenfranchisement policy in the world," she said. In Germany, felons
are disenfranchised for five years if they have committed "serious
legislative offenses." And in Finland and New Zealand,
disenfranchisement is limited to those caught buying or selling votes,
and even then, it lasts for only two years, she said.

An Israeli court ruling stated that denying felons the right to vote
would hurt not the felon but the voting system, Ispahani said. As a
result, there are now polling stations set up inside Israeli prisons.

Ispahani said state laws disenfranchising felons and exfelons are a
serious threat to American democracy. The current policies are "truly
criminal," said Ispahani. "We're effectively telling people, Welcome
back, pay taxes, don't vote.'"

She cited disorganization and red tape as other factors making it
especially difficult for exconvicts to vote. "Some states require a
stateissued ID to vote, ... and they cost money. Many exfelons don't
have an extra $20 or $30 to get an ID so they can vote," she said.

There are strong racial overtones in the issue of felony
disenfranchisement, Ispahani said. Sixtyseven percent of the nation's
prison population is African American or Latino, and about onethird
of disenfranchised felons are AfricanAmerican men. In states that have
a policy of permanent disenfranchisement, 40 percent of black men will
lose their right to vote at some point during their lives.

But racial reasons for disenfranchisement are not new, Ispahani said.
Historically, state laws have explicitly described their felony
disenfranchisement policy as a way to keep African Americans from voting.

New Jersey's current policy is to deny the vote to exconvicts on
parole or probation, Ispahani said. She said 81 percent of the felons
in New Jersey are minorities, compared to 13 percent of the population
at large. New Jersey state officials admitted that this number was
disproportionate due to racial profiling, she said.

There are many reasons legislators use to justify these policies,
Ispahani said. Some of these include maintaining the "purity of the
ballot box" and preventing electoral fraud, she said.

But Ispahani said a clear distinction needs to be made between
different types of crimes. "There may be a reason to disenfranchise a
felon convicted of electoral fraud, but it's hard to imagine why a car
thief would engage in electoral fraud," she said.

"You hear the murderer/rapist issue a lot," she said, explaining
legislators' resistance to grant the vote to perpetrators of violent
crimes. "But it's not a criminal justice issue, it's an issue of
democracy. It's an issue of fairness."

Ispahani said that recently people have begun showing support for the
cause of restoring felons' right to vote, and as a result, 25 states
have "significantly reformed" their disenfranchisement laws in the
past year.

"Across the nation, 80 percent of Americans believe that once someone
has served their time, they should be allowed to vote again," she said.

Ispahani noted societal ignorance of laws disenfranchising felons in
the context of Martha Stewart's recent conviction. A television panel
was discussing Stewart's status as a felon when someone brought up her
right to vote, Ispahani said. "Can she vote? No one knew."

Lack of information is a widespread problem, Ispahani said. "Sometimes
legislators don't even know about the disenfranchisement laws of their
own state," she said.

One of the most important components of the Right to Vote campaign is
raising awareness of the voting policies of each state. There is a
need to promote education in prisons so that prisoners will have
knowledge of what to do and where to go to vote when they get out, she
said.

The Right to Vote campaign formed in early 2003, when many national
organizations came together to "seriously make a dent," Ispahani told
the Herald. They began by focusing on five states, chosen on the basis
of their current state law and the potential for change.

She said the most important message she could give would be to get
involved.

"Even if you do nothing else, write about it, talk about it, get
people informed about it," she said.

Katherine Cummings '06, a member of Students for a Sensible Drug
Policy and one of the organizers of the event, said she felt the
problem is an important one, particularly because so few people know
about it. The policies of felony disenfranchisement "don't jibe with
our idea of democracy," she said.

The event, which drew a small audience to List 120, was sponsored by
the Brown College Democrats, SSDP and the Third World Center as part
of Democracy Awareness Week.