“A little good news” in Kentucky last month: among all the recent bad news in criminal justice, the outgoing Democratic governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshar, created a positive situation with the restoration of voting rights for 140,000 felons. This is good news for those of us who contend that once a person serves his or her time in prison — in other words, once “their debt to society” is paid– their citizenship rights should be restored. However, Kentucky is one of four states that takes away convicted felons voting rights–forever! The other states are Florida, Iowa, and Virginia. Voting rights in these states can only be restored through action of a governor or pardons boards, and that has not happened much in past years. In one of his last acts as governor, Beshear issued an executive order restoring voting rights to all Kentuckians with non-violent felony convictions. While an automatic restoration of voting rights for all felons is preferable, this action may be a step in the that direction.
The number of Americans disenfranchised because of felony records grew substantially between 1960 and 2010–from 1.6 million to 5.9 million. The political impact of this unprecedented disenfranchisement rate is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is political. A study reported by the Sentencing Project estimates that felony disenfranchisement policies might have affected the results of several U.S. Senate races between 1970 and 1988 as well as the Bush-Gore presidential election in 2000. If disenfranchised voters in Florida alone had been permitted to vote, George W. Bush’s narrow victory almost certainly would have been reversed.
By the way, the removal of the right to vote forever because of felony records is a racist policy. It is one of the means by which states limit voting by blacks. For proof I offer two bits of data. One is the disparate result–the effect on black people in comparison to white people. Since intent is irrelevant in defining racism we only need to look at the racially disparate impact of a policy or practice. Felony disenfranchisement policies produce a disproportionate impact on black Americans. Blacks of voting age are four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population; one of every 13 black adults is disenfranchised across the country. In three of our “worst” four states on felony disenfranchisement–Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia–more than one in five black adults is disenfranchised. Overall 2.2 million black citizens are banned from voting. Thus, blacks who are only 13 percent of the population in the United States are 38 percent of persons who have lost their right to vote because of felony records.
The other bit of data is provided by the Virginia legislature. Virginia lawmakers convened the now-infamous Constitutional Convention of 1901 to 1902 primarily to limit black voting. As Alfred P. Thom, a delegate to the convention noted, “We do not come here prompted by an impartial purpose in reference to Negro suffrage. We come here to sweep the field of expedients for the purpose of finding some constitutional method of ridding ourselves of it forever.” This is clearly a policy instituted when it was permissible to practice racial discrimination that is still in existence.