ONE MORE STEP TOWARD UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE

There was a time in America when only rich white men were allowed to vote.
But as history progressed, so did we. Today, every able adult citizen
enjoys this most fundamental democratic right with one notable exception:
convicted felons.

Due to a patchwork of state disenfranchisement laws, more than 4.2 million
Americans -- one in 50 adults -- are denied the right to vote. These people
include more than one million who have fully paid their debt to society,
yet still face sanction, sometimes for their entire life.

At the turn of the 20th century, criminal disenfranchisement laws -- in
conjunction with poll taxes, literacy tests and other structural measures
- -- were retooled with the intent of denying black men their newly won right
to vote.

One hundred years later, black men represent more than one-third of the
total disenfranchised population, or 1.4 million people. Sixteen states
disenfranchise more than 10 percent of their black citizens, according to a
study in the December 2002 issue of the American Sociological Review.

This is no coincidence. The racially disproportionate impact of felon
disenfranchisement is the direct result of inequalities within the criminal
justice system. With 5 percent of the world's population, the United States
holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners. How did this happen in the land
of the free?

According to The Economist, the drug war is what happened. Back in the
early '70s, America's imprisonment rate was seven times less severe than it
is today. In 1980, only 15 per 100,000 adults were incarcerated on
drug-related charges. By 1996, that number had mushroomed to 148 per 100,000.

The drug war became a cover for the persecution of blacks. Even though
blacks use illegal drugs at approximately the same rate as whites,
according to the Department of Justice's own numbers, blacks are admitted
to state prisons more than 13 times as often as whites are. In some states,
blacks make up 90 percent of inmates incarcerated on drug charges.

A study in the December 2001 issue of Social Science Quarterly found that
the minority population of a state (in terms of percentage) is the primary
factor in predicting the severity of that state's felon disenfranchisement
laws. A study commissioned by the National Science Foundation found that
states with proportionately high numbers of nonwhite prisoners are more
likely to disenfranchise convicted felons after incarceration.

These two studies show that the persistence of disenfranchisement is the
direct result of modern racism: Those in power can hide behind its
race-neutral façade and still inflict harm on black communities.

These laws also have devastating political consequences for Democrats,
since both prisoners and minorities tend to vote in Democratic blocs. Were
it not for felon disenfranchisement laws, the composition of Congress would
tilt dramatically toward the left, according to a study in the December
2002 issue of the American Sociological Review.

We also know that Al Gore would have easily won the presidency in 2000 were
it not for Florida's disenfranchisement laws, which are the most severe in
the nation. Even a minor drug possession arrest is considered a felony in
Florida, and can result in the loss of voting rights for one's entire life,
according to Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project.

Voting is a fundamental right in a democracy; therefore, states need to
have an extremely compelling justification for eliminating voting rights.

One of the theoretical justifications is based on the idea that criminals
have broken the social contract and therefore have sacrificed their right
to participate in it. By this argument, criminal disenfranchisement fits
comfortably within the concept of liberalism, as defined by civic
philosophers like John Locke.

In reality, criminal disenfranchisement violates the primary tenet of
liberalism: That you cannot give away your citizenship. It also fails to
meet the liberal standard of proportional punishment for each and every crime.

Felon disenfranchisement fails the proportionality standard in two ways:
(1) by applying to all felonies, rather than felonies specifically related
to electoral fraud; and (2) by being overly severe, at least in the case of
a lifetime loss of voting rights.

Another theoretical justification is based on what is called civic
republicanism. Proponents of this argument say that because felons (like
children, the insane and non-citizens) are neither trustworthy nor loyal to
the nation, they should also be denied the vote, just as they are denied
the right to serve on a jury. Civic republicans argue that anyone convicted
of a serious crime has shown himself or herself to be morally inferior, and
thus society has an interest in denying them the vote.

We should not forget that an identical argument was used in the past to
keep nonwhites, women, the poor and less educated from the polls.
Furthermore, voting is about expressing one's opinion, ethical or not,
unlike jury duty, which demands objectivity.

The penological justifications are equally dubious. Disenfranchisement
can't serve as retribution when punishment is administered without
proportionality. The low visibility of disenfranchisement makes it a poor
deterrent. And it hinders, rather than helps, an ex-con's rehabilitation
and reintegration into society.

In Oregon, felons are only disenfranchised while they are incarcerated. I
feel this is a fair compromise, so long as all nonviolent felons have their
civil rights automatically restored to them once released from prison.

In the case of violent criminals, I would advocate keeping them
disenfranchised while on parole or probation. I feel that the libertarian
distinction between nonviolent and violent crime is legitimate insofar as
violence is a more serious violation of the social contract and thus should
be punished more severely.

States also have a legitimate interest in disenfranchising those convicted
of election fraud or serious violations against the state, like treason,
perhaps even for life.

Enacting the above policies in every state would remove the disparate
racial impact of felon disenfranchisement laws, bringing them in line with
the principles of liberalism without endangering the electorate.

Whether by state referendum, congressional injunction or judicial action,
we must continue America's historical march forward, ever closer to
universal suffrage.