Alabama Prison Voter Registration Drive Halted By Republicans

[lame54]

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/21/alabama-gop-threats-halt-historic-voter-registration-drive/

Down in Alabama, you don’t lose your vote if convicted of a felony unless it’s for a crime of “moral turpitude’ - and simple drug possession doesn’t fall into that category. Which means somewhere around 50,000 Alabamans are allowed to vote and maybe don’t know it - including about 6 - 7,000 still in prison.

The Ordinary People’s Society and their national partner the Drug Policy Alliance had been working in the prisons, registering voters with the full support of the Alabama Department of Corrections - until…

Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen stopped a voter registration drive for inmates Thursday under pressure from the Alabama Republican Party.

In a letter to state Republican Party Chairman Mike Hubbard, Allen said individuals conducting the program “were not doing anything for the inmates that they could not do themselves by simply contacting the Secretary of State’s Office for the voter registration postcard.”

Still, Allen said he decided to stop the drive because of a section in the state code that prohibits using state-owned property to promote or advance candidates for election.

“While it is not clear that assisting voters to register would violate those provisions, I cannot expose departmental employees to that possibility,” he wrote.

… Allen’s letter to Hubbard was in response to one the chairman e-mailed him earlier in the day, saying the GOP supports the idea of registering more people to vote, but not when it comes to prisoners.

“Furthermore, I have concerns about potential issues with how this effort is being monitored to ensure no form of voter fraud occurs,” wrote Hubbard, who is also minority leader of the Alabama House, which votes on the prison system’s budget.

Of course, the subtext here is “stop, or we’ll vote to cut your budget”. Meanwhile, the State AG is trying to get the whole law overturned and ban everyone convicted of a felony from voting.

But we’re not talking about murderers, rapists and violent criminals here - we’re talking about tens of thousands convicted of a simple possession charge who have stayed clean thereafter. Trouble is, those folk don’t usually vote Republican.

[MUAD_DIB]

1. How do I put this delicately...

Once somebody has served their time, and are part of the free community once again, then they should have the right to vote. I know some states have differing opinions on voting rights once an inmate has been released.

Why somebody is incarcerated I don't think that they should have the right to vote: regardless of the crime.



Fire away.

[lame54]

2. Except Alabama law is on their side

[MUAD_DIB]

3. I put it front and center what my opinion was.

If there is no law stating that inmates can not be kept from being registered to vote then register them.


I personally believe that the Democrats could find a better voting segment than the incarcerated crowd.

[stillcool]

4. so even if they can vote..

they should have their rights denied for political appearances?

[MUAD_DIB]

5. I didn't say that, now did I?

My personal belief is that, If you are incarcerated, you lose some rights. Once you have finished serving your time then they should be restored to you.

Depending on what a state's law says about enrolling inmates is a state's matter.

But if there is no law that denies an inmate to vote then the GOP should not interfere with am enrollment initiative.

K?

[redstate_democrat]

8. How do you distinguish between which rights a person maintains

while in prison and which ones they lose? How do you arbitrarily decide that the right to vote is lost? Some people think prisoners should be denied basic 4th amendment rights and have their bodily cavities searched at the whim of corrections officers. Do you think a prisoner should have to bend over and spread em every time a corrections officers feels like it? What about basic due process rights, like the right not to be beaten on a regular basis? Just because someone is behind prison doesn't mean they shouldn't be afforded basic rights. The fact that they are in prison is punishment enough.

[MUAD_DIB]

18. I love how I am being mugged here for not believing that convicts

should have the right to vote. Aren't you guys acting a little over the top on this?

A reasonable response to my two sentence reply to the OP would have been "Why do you believe that?"


Instead what I am seeing is words being put into my mouth about what my real motives are, that I am a republican or Forrest Gump.


But to your point above you ask me "How do you arbitrarily decide. The fact that they are in prison is punishment enough."


Without getting into a whole new OP on this the fact is that they're in prison.

So why should they be allowed to vote?

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. Alas, Alabama law doesn't take your considered opinion into account.

So, discussing it doesn't really sound apt.

Of course, if one were to consider your opinion, regardless, they might, rather than concurring with your obiter dictum, assert that your whole penal system is rotten to the core, and a bigger Gulag than even the former Russian one. And to what purpose? To enslave, oppress and exploit to the nth degree, both those imprisoned, many on wickedly farcical charges, and even afterwards, when they are force to pay for all manner of checks they become subject to.

[MUAD_DIB]

7. Thanks for the display of the bleeding heart.

Everybody is innocent, right? ;D

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. Gee!You're as thick as two short planks, aren't you, Dum-Dum!

SURELY, you are more mature than to think a term such as "bleeding heart" would cut me to the quick. I REVEL in it! The Sacred Heart is my favourite devotion, you numbskull!

"Everybody is innocent, right?" Don't answer your own question, MADMAUD. And then expect me to deign to enlighen you. You're obviously gone beyond recall. Now, go back to sleep and don't troll around here any more. There's a good dog. This board is for adults.

[MUAD_DIB]

13. I just call them like I see them, and I see quite well.

In addition, I am not trolling. You are being reactionary.


Live with it.

[Obamanaut]

10. No, everyone is not innocent. Some of the guilty ones still walk

among us. The ones who are incarcerated have been convicted of a variety of crimes - some heinous, most not so much. Some were wrongfully incarcerated.

You might be surprised that approximately one in thirty people in the U.S. has some connection with the prison system: they are now incarcerated (in prisons or jails), they have been incarcerated and are now free or on parole, or they are related to one of the aforementioned.

The ones who have been released, for the most part, have jobs, pay taxes, have kids in school, shop in stores, and simply want to get on with their lives. They were incarcerated as a punishment, and when that period of punishment is over they should have all rights restored to them within the framework of the state laws. Some must reapply for voting privileges after a certain time, others may have them restored automatically - but restored they should be.

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. It's wasted on the numbskull. He can only think in terms of absolutes.

He seems to think that the cold-bloodedness of the psychopath is a mark of machismo ... like the Republican morons who coined the phrase, "bleeding heart" to use as a pejorative.

[MUAD_DIB]

17. Aparently you are wrong again. I wonder why you are getting overly emotional

over one person's opinion...

[MUAD_DIB]

14. And that was what I had written. I just don't like bleeding hearts that

lecture me on morals.

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. Remember, Forrest, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know

what you're gonna get. But you can expect a few "bleeding hearts" on a Democratic board.

Got investments in the privatised Gulag, have we?

[MUAD_DIB]

16. And you can expect that I will point out their overly emotional resposes.

I am a realist. What are you?

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Who is in charge of elections in Alabama? Secretary of State? Is that person a D or R? n/t