Louisiana: Judge Doesn’t Like It, but Upholds Voting Ban on Some Felons | Associated Press

More than 70,000 Louisiana residents on probation or parole for felony crimes will remain unable to vote, under a decision issued Monday by a reluctant Baton Rouge judge who said he disagreed with the prohibition in law but had to uphold it. State District Judge Tim Kelley called it unfair to keep thousands of people from voting if they’re working, paying taxes and following the law. But he said Louisiana’s constitution and a four-decades-old state law required him to continue denying the voting rights. “I don’t like this ruling. I don’t like it. It’s not fair,” Kelley said.

Louisiana: Court ruling on voting rights of felons expected Monday | The Advocate

A state judge in Baton Rouge is slated to rule Monday on the legality of a four-decades-old Louisiana law that bars felons on probation and parole from voting. There are roughly 71,000 such persons in the state. Attorneys for eight individuals and a group called Voice of the Ex-Offender challenged the constitutionality of the 1976 law in a case that’s being heard by District Court Tim Kelley. In recently filed written arguments, lawyers for the plaintiffs and for the state Attorney General’s and Secretary of State’s offices have given Kelley plenty to chew on as he mulls his decision.

Florida: Push to restore voting rights to ex-felons reaches Supreme Court | Orlando Sentinel

Desmond Meade of Orlando did everything he could to support his wife, Sheena, in her unsuccessful run for the Florida House last year. But the one thing he couldn’t do was vote for her. “Basically, I was told I wasn’t a citizen anymore,” said Meade, one of about 1.7 million people in Florida permanently barred from voting because of a past felony conviction, despite having completed their sentences. Now, a group led by Meade, a former addict convicted on drug and firearm charges in 2001 who went on to earn a law degree, appeared before the state Supreme Court on Monday in an important step in getting a constitutional amendment on the ballot. If it makes the ballot and wins approval by voters, the amendment would restore voting rights to felons who have completed sentences for nonviolent felonies.

Nebraska: Committee advances bill to allow immediate voting rights to felons | Lincoln Journal Star

Twelve years ago, Katrina Thomas served six months in prison, thinking she would never be able to vote again because of a felony conviction. She found out when she was released that the Legislature had passed a bill in 2005, the year she entered prison, that allowed her to vote two years after her sentence was complete. Now she is fighting for others to remove the two-year wait and allow them the right to vote as soon as their sentences are complete. Thomas testified Wednesday in front of the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee on a bill (LB75), introduced by Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne, that would repeal the waiting period. Before 2005, the state had a lifetime voting ban for those convicted of felonies.

Nebraska: Bill would restore felons’ voting rights sooner | York News Times

A Nebraska legislative committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would give people convicted of crimes the right to vote when they complete their sentences. Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha told the committee the state’s 2005 law that allows felons to vote two years after they finish their sentences doesn’t do enough. A bill he sponsored and intends to designate as his priority, increasing the odds lawmakers will vote on it, would restore voting rights to felons as soon as they complete their sentences, including any parole or probation. It would affect about 7,800 felons in Nebraska, including Shakur Abdullah, who was released from prison last year. Abdullah, who served 41 years for shooting two men and killing one when he was 16, told the committee he’s never been able to vote. He now helps others involved in the criminal justice system.

Virginia: House Republicans stop Sen. Norment’s felon voting rights proposal | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A House of Delegates committee on Friday stopped a proposal from Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, that would have given legislators authority over deciding which felons receive the right to vote again, while reducing the governor’s power. The proposed constitutional amendment — Senate Joint Resolution 223 — passed the Republican-controlled Senate 21-19 earlier this month after bitter, partisan debate. In the House Privileges and Elections Committee on Friday, a motion to advance the proposal did not receive a second, and it is expected to die in the committee as this year’s General Assembly session heads into its final week.

Virginia: Caustic debate unfolds in Senate as GOP moves to slow down felon voting restoration | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued an executive order in April restoring the voting rights of more than 200,000 felons who had served their sentences.
The Democrat’s move took the Virginia executive’s power to restore civil rights further than any previous governor and led to a court challenge and eventually legislation. That legislation generated a bitter, partisan debate in the Senate on Tuesday over McAuliffe’s actions and Virginia’s history of hindering African-Americans from voting. In the end, the Senate voted 21-19, along party lines, to pass Senate Joint Resolution 223 from Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City. The debate came just as legislators reached crossover, the functional midpoint of this year’s 46-day session. In contrast to McAuliffe’s policy of liberally restoring rights, the Norment proposal would set criteria to curtail such power for any future governor.

Virginia: Voting rights reform for felons dies in General Assembly subcommittee | Roanoke Times

Legislators’ attempts to reform the process by which felons regain the right to vote hit a dead-end Monday. A General Assembly subcommittee killed a block of constitutional amendments, including House Joint Resolution 542 by Del. Greg Habeeb, R-Salem, that would explore new avenues for felons to regain their voting rights after serving prison time. In a 4-3 vote, a House privileges and elections subcommittee tabled five constitutional amendments that would alter the way felons regain their voting rights. The subcommittee also tabled rights restoration bills proposed by Democratic legislators from Fairfax and Richmond and by Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville. In addition, the subcommittee sidelined another 20 proposed amendments covering a range of issues.

Florida: Joint House resolution would restore felon voting rights after three years | Florida Politics

A new joint resolution in the House would allow felons the right to vote in Florida three years after their sentence is up. The resolution by Rep. Al Jacquet of West Palm Beach would, if passed on the next general election (or a special election specifically for this) ballot, amend the statutes on voting to extend the right to felons. A previous resolution failed to even make it on the ballot in 2016 due to not getting the required number of signatures in time by Florida Rights Coalition President Desmond Meade, who spearheaded the movement to do so.

Virginia: After bitter fight with McAuliffe over felon voting, General Assembly finds little consensus on reform | Richmond Times-Dispatch

It was the biggest policy fight in Virginia last year, but nearly halfway through the General Assembly session, nobody’s really talking about it.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s push for a sweeping expansion of voting rights for more than 200,000 felons, which drew blasts of criticism from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and a successful Republican legal challenge in the Supreme Court of Virginia, seemed to tee up a big issue for lawmakers in the 2017 legislative session. McAuliffe and other Democrats railed against the disenfranchisement policy in the state constitution as a relic from Virginia’s racist past that should be eliminated.

Wyoming: House Passes Bill Which Would Automatically Restore Voting Rights of Some Nonviolent Felons | KTWO

A person convicted in Wyoming of a nonviolent felony who completes their entire sentence on or after Jan. 1, 2010, would have their voting rights automatically restored under a bill passed Thursday by the Wyoming House of Representatives. House Bill 75 passed on third reading by a vote of 41-17 with two lawmakers excused. The measure would require people convicted of a nonviolent felony who completed their sentence — including probation and parole — before 2010 to fill out a request form and be found eligible before their voting rights could be restored.

Wyoming: House committee advances voting rights bill, more | Wyoming Tribune Eagle

The House Judiciary Committee advanced bills Thursday that would expand automatic restoration of voting rights to nonviolent felons, create a more defined system for returning a victim’s property held as evidence and allow the state Department of Enterprise Technology Services to conduct background checks on employees. A bill introduced by Rep. James Byrd, D-Cheyenne, would automatically restore voting rights to more nonviolent felons. House Bill 75 eliminates the application process for nonviolent felons who have completed their sentence to have their voting rights restored. Instead, it directs the Wyoming Department of Corrections to automatically issue certificates of voting rights restoration to affected people if their conviction was in Wyoming. Felons convicted outside of Wyoming or by a federal law would have to submit a request to the Department of Corrections.

Wyoming: Bill would expand automatic restoration of voting rights to eligible non-violent Wyoming felons | Casper Star Tribune

More nonviolent felons who have completed their entire sentence – including probation and parole – would have their voting rights automatically restored under a bill introduced in the Wyoming Legislature. Under the current system, nonviolent felons who completed their sentence before Jan. 1, 2016, were convicted under federal law or who were sentenced out of state can have their rights restored, but must first complete an application process. Felons who were sentenced in Wyoming and completed their sentence after Jan. 1, 2016, would be exempt from the application requirement.

Nebraska: Bill would restore voting rights immediately for felons who served their time | Lincoln Journal Star

Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne introduced a voting rights bill Thursday to give felons who have served their time the ability to vote upon release. The bill (LB75) would take away a two-year waiting time for released prisoners with felony convictions. Shakur Abdullah of Omaha has been waiting for his chance to vote since he was released from a Nebraska prison a year ago. He was convicted for two felonies at age 16 — murder and shooting with the intent to kill during a robbery, for which he was given a life sentence. He was resentenced in 2015 as part of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave judges the option of sentencing juveniles to something other than an automatic life term. He was released in January 2016. Since then, he has been working on getting legislation passed that would allow him and other convicted felons who have served their time the right to vote without the wait.

Virginia: Voting changes in Virginia proposed in Assembly | WTOP

Virginia voters may no longer get to wait until primary day to decide which party to vote in; absentee balloting or voter identification laws could change, and lawmakers could face term limits under a series of competing proposals in the General Assembly. The annual session runs only into late February, so action on the bills and proposed constitutional amendments must happen within weeks of lawmakers gaveling in on Jan. 11. The restoration of voting rights for felons is expected to be a significant issue in the session. Gov. Terry McAuliffe moved to restore the voting rights of more than 200,000 felons in June, but that was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Virginia. McAuliffe has since continued to restore rights at a smaller scale. Members of the General Assembly have introduced a series of proposed constitutional amendments that would automatically restore the right to vote for some or all felons after they have completed their sentences, or allow for a pathway to get those rights back. A proposal from a number of Democrats, including Del. Marcus Simon, D-Falls Church, would eliminate the state constitution’s restrictions on felons voting.

Wyoming: Bill would expand automatic restoration of voting rights to some felons | Wyoming Tribune Eagle

More nonviolent felons who have completed their entire sentence – including probation and parole – would have their voting rights automatically restored under a bill introduced in the Wyoming Legislature. Under the current system, nonviolent felons who completed their sentence before Jan. 1, 2016, were convicted under federal law or who were sentenced out of state can have their rights restored, but must first complete an application process. Felons who were sentenced in Wyoming and completed their sentence after Jan. 1, 2016, would be exempt from the application requirement. House Bill 75 eliminates the application process and instead directs the Wyoming Department of Corrections to automatically issue certificates of voting rights restoration to affected people if their conviction was in Wyoming.

Kentucky: Secretary of State pushing for early voting and ex-felon voting rights | Lane Report

Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said that during the Kentucky General Assembly, which began Tuesday, she will push for early voting and legislation to make it easier for veteran-owned businesses to get started. “When I took office, I promised Kentuckians that I would bring commonsense changes and reforms to the Secretary of State’s office—that I would make it easier to do business with government and tear down barriers to the ballot box—and, together, we are making strides,” Grimes said. “In this session, I’ll continue to keep that promise.” Grimes’ legislative campaign for early in-person absentee voting began last year and won bipartisan support, including the endorsement of Tre Hargett, the Republican Secretary of State of Tennessee. He traveled to Frankfort to offer his testimony on the legislation. Grimes’ proposal calls for allowing all Kentucky voters to cast ballots early in-person without an excuse during their county’s in-person absentee voting window. Early voting is offered in 37 states and the District of Columbia.

Florida: Effort to restore voting rights to Florida felons moves forward | Sun Sentinel

The new year could mark a major milestone toward hundreds of thousands of Floridians regaining the right to vote. The Florida Supreme Court in March will hear arguments on a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow felons — except murderers and sex offenders — to have their voting rights restored after they complete prison and probation. Just over 6 million felons in the United States are unable to vote, according to The Sentencing Project, a prison reform group. About 1.7 million of them live in Florida, which amounts to more than 10 percent of the state’s voting population.

Editorials: Florida’s felon vote: Destroying lives and wasting taxpayer dollars | Martin Dyckman & Darryl Paulson/Tampa Bay Times

Florida has what many consider to be the most rigid and unfair felony disenfranchisement law in the nation. The highly respected Sentencing Project declared in a recent report that “in 2010, more people are disenfranchised in Florida than in any other state and Florida’s disenfranchisement remains highest among the 50 states.” We are not thrilled that Florida leads the nation in denying more citizens of the right to vote than any other state. How far out of line is Florida? In the United States as a whole, 1.77 percent of whites and 7.66 percent of blacks are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction. In Florida, 10 percent of the voting age population (VAP) is disenfranchised, but 23 percent — or almost one out of four black voters — is disenfranchised. Nationally, about 6 million individuals have lost the right to vote due to a felony conviction; about 1.7 million or 27 percent of all those disenfranchised reside in Florida. The felon vote was part of a package of legislation designed to cope with the emergence of black voter majorities throughout the South after the Civil War. In 1867, 15,434 of Florida’s 25,582 registered voters were black, something that Florida’s white voters were unwilling to accept. In fact, it was not until after the Civil War that Florida banned all voters with a felony conviction.

Florida: State ‘radically out-of-step’ in denying felons right to vote, report says | Miami Herald

A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice takes Florida to task for its law denying voting rights to felons unless they successfully navigate an arduous and lengthy process to get those rights back. The Brennan Center calls Florida’s law “radically out of step with policies around the rest of the country” and “one of the harshest laws in the nation.” The law needs to be replaced,the report said. According to the report, released this month, 1.6 million Floridians are denied voting rights because of the state law. Those residents represent more than 10 percent of the state’s voting-age population. A disproportionate number, nearly one-third, are black. “Florida’s criminal disenfranchisement law is rooted in some of our country’s most discriminatory voting practices, and it continues to have its intended effects today,” said the report’s author, Erika Wood, a New York Law School professor and director of the Voting Rights and Civic Participation Project of the Impact Center for Public Interest Law. Read the full report

Editorials: American democracy is being derailed. Can faith be restored? | Richard Wolffe/The Guardian

Now that the electoral college has formally selected the next president of the United States, it’s worth taking a deep breath and asking: what kind of democracy do we live in? The will of the people ought to be clear after an election. But as 2016 draws to a close, there are deeply troubling signs that American democracy – after 227 years of seeking a more perfect union – has left the rails. It turns out it’s possible to win the governorship in North Carolina but find the job is stripped of power before you’re sworn into office. And across the nation, we abide by the archaic rules of an electoral college that has all but renounced its first responsibility: to elect someone fit to be president. The Founders may have wanted to prevent demagogues from taking power, but party hacks ignored all that original intent. It makes you wonder why the candidates and voters abide by the rules of a game that nobody is interested in playing.

Florida: State Supreme Court to review Felon Voting Restoration Amendment | Florida Record

A proposed amendment to restore the voting rights of Florida felons after completion of their sentences received just enough signatures to trigger a review by the Florida Supreme Court and a potential place on the November 2018 ballot. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi passed the initiative onto the high court to review the language within the Voting Restoration Amendment. The court will review to see if the language is clear and not misleading, and ensure the initiative has only one purpose. A hearing is expected by the end of the year. If approved and if the group supporting the initiative, Floridians for a Fair Democracy, can get enough signatures, it can go on the November 2018 ballot. “The felon voting right initiative is pushed by the recognition that people do make mistakes but deserve a second chance,” American Civil Liberties Union of Florida Director Howard Simon told the Florida Record.

National: This year, laws with roots to the Civil War prevented 6.1 million from voting | PBS

Donald Trump won the presidential election on Tuesday as millions of people were prevented from voting this year by rules that root back to the Civil War and were made to maintain white male political dominance. About 6.1 million people who were convicted of breaking laws could not cast ballots because of policies that keep felons off voter rolls, according to justice reform organization The Sentencing Project. And according to the most recent numbers from Florida, Wisconsin and Michigan, which is still counting, Hillary Clinton lost by a margin smaller than those banned from voting — many of whom are poor or black or both, which are groups that tend to vote Democrat. At the same time, Clinton garnered at least half a million more votes than Trump, but lost the Electoral College. This system gives each state a number of votes roughly proportioned to population — 538 in total — and the candidate who wins the majority of them, which will be officially counted in January, wins the election. The last time such an anomaly happened was during the hotly-contested 2000 presidential election, when Republican George W. Bush won the Electoral College, defeating Democrat Al Gore, who won the popular vote.

Florida: Partisanship Seen in Florida’s Harsh Stance on Felons’ Voting Rights | Newsweek

Leonard “Roscoe” Newton has been in and out of Florida’s prisons since before he could vote, starting with a youthful conviction for burglary. He’s been a free man for six years now with an important exception: he still can’t vote. Newton, who is African American, is among nearly 1.5 million former felons who have been stripped of their right to vote in a state with a history of deciding U.S. presidential elections, sometimes by razor-thin margins of just a few hundred votes. Felons have been disenfranchised in Florida since 1868, although they can seek clemency to restore their voting rights. Since 2011, however, when Republican state leaders toughened the restrictions on felon voting rights, just 2,339 ex-felons have had that right restored, the lowest annual numbers in nearly two decades, according to state data reviewed by Reuters. That compares with more than 155,000 in the prior four years under reforms introduced by Governor Rick Scott’s predecessor, moderate Republican governor Charlie Crist, the data shows. Crist, who was governor from 2007 to 2011, made it much easier to restore ex-felons’ voting rights.

National: Unable to Vote, Ex-Convicts Reach Out, Try to Have Impact on US Election | VoA News

Kenneth Inniss, 56, has not voted in a U.S. election since 1984, when he first went to prison for a felony conviction. He is now out but will have to wait one more year until he is off parole to vote. “It’s a right that we take for granted until it’s taken from us,” he said. “And that’s when it really hit home for me. I don’t have a say in how those laws are keeping me incarcerated.” Inniss recently packed into a glossy black van with eight other formerly incarcerated New Yorkers and embarked on a road trip to Cleveland, Ohio. The group had a simple mission: Inform Ohio ex-prisoners of their right to vote.

Mississippi: Legislature less inclined to restore felons’ voting rights | Daily Journal

Mississippi has an estimated 182,814 convicted felons ineligible to vote, according to a 2012 study by the Sentencing Project, a national nonprofit organization that works on criminal justice issues. Only Florida with 1.54 million felons or 10.42 percent of its voter-age population ineligible to vote had a higher percentage than Mississippi where 8.27 percent of the adult population was ineligible to vote, according to the study. While the Sentencing Project study might be a bit dated, more than likely the statistics have not changed much in Mississippi. Since 2012, which encompasses the time the current leadership has controlled the House and Senate, eight felons have had their voting rights restored by the Mississippi Legislature.

Wisconsin: Legislative attempts to make it easier for felons to vote almost always fail | News21

Republican and Democratic politicians across the country are deeply divided over restoring the right to vote to felons, a political fracture that affects millions of convicted criminals. In Iowa and Kentucky, Democratic governors issued executive orders to restore voting rights to many felons — only to have them rescinded by Republican governors who succeeded them. Democratic legislators in 29 states proposed more than 270 bills over the past six years that would have made it easier for some felons to vote but very few passed, especially in legislatures controlled by Republicans, News21 found in an analysis of state legislative measures nationwide. Debate and decisions about restoring voting rights to felons often follow partisan lines because felons, particularly African-Americans, are viewed as more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, voting rights experts told News21. Nationwide, 1 in 13 black voters is disenfranchised because of a felony conviction as opposed to 1 in 56 non-black voters, according to The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that works on criminal justice sentencing policies and racial disparities.

Editorials: Alabama’s grossly unconstitutional felony disenfranchisement scheme | Mark Joseph Stern/The Atlantic

In 1901, Alabama passed a constitution that stripped voting rights from any person who committed a “crime involving moral turpitude.” The purpose of this disenfranchisement, the president of the convention explained, was to “establish white supremacy in this state”; Alabama labelled those offenses more frequently committed by blacks as crimes “involving moral turpitude” in order to purge minorities from the voter rolls. In 1985, the Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the “moral turpitude” provision as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. But 11 years later, the state quietly reinserted the same words into its felony disenfranchisement law. Today, the statute has helped to disenfranchise 250,000 Alabamans, most of them black. Indeed, a stunning 15 percent of otherwise qualified black voters in Alabama can’t cast a ballot because of the state’s felony disenfranchisement law. A new lawsuit spearheaded by the Campaign Legal Center argues that the statute is a gross violation of Alabamans’ rights under both the Voting Rights Act and the United States Constitution.

Alabama: Ban on felon voting rights target of lawsuit: Law called unconstitutional, racist | AL.com

Alabama’s policy of stripping convicted felons’ of their right to vote is unconstitutional and steeped in a history of racial injustice, a group of plaintiffs say in federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. The Greater Birmingham Ministries and 10 Alabamians who are not allowed to vote because of a past felony conviction filed the lawsuit Monday in Montgomery federal court. They argue that the blanket ban is an unconstitutional infringement on the right to vote, unfairly punishes people long after their sentences are complete and disproportionately impacts minority communities. “It is inextricably tied to Alabama’s long history of denying black citizens voting rights and equal access to the polls, using the criminal justice system to achieve those goals,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the suit. The lawsuit quoted 2014 statistics from the Sentencing Project that estimated more than 260,000 people were blocked from voting in Alabama. Nearly half of those were African-American and equated to 15 percent of the adult black population. Ten individual plaintiffs are named in the suit but they are asking the court to declare it a class action.

Alabama: Lawsuit seeks to overturn Alabama’s felon voting rights ban | Associated Press

Alabama’s policy of stripping convicted felons’ of their right to vote is unconstitutional and steeped in a history of racial injustice, a group of plaintiffs say in federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law. The Greater Birmingham Ministries and 10 Alabamians who are not allowed to vote because of a past felony conviction filed the lawsuit Monday in Montgomery federal court. They argue that the blanket ban is an unconstitutional infringement on the right to vote, unfairly punishes people long after their sentences are complete and disproportionately impacts minority communities. “It is inextricably tied to Alabama’s long history of denying black citizens voting rights and equal access to the polls, using the criminal justice system to achieve those goals,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the suit. The lawsuit quoted 2014 statistics from the Sentencing Project that estimated more than 260,000 people were blocked from voting in Alabama. Nearly half of those were African-American and equated to 15 percent of the adult black population. Ten individual plaintiffs are named in the suit but they are asking the court to declare it a class action.