“Looking for the Constitution in Rand Paul’s proposed felon voter law”
Derek Muller mulls. … Continue reading
Category Archives: felon voting
“Rand Paul, Criminal Justice Hero: The senator from Kentucky wants to give ex-felons the vote even though they won’t vote Republican.”
Emily Bazelon writes for Slate. … Continue reading
“Prosecutors consider 29 possible cases of felons voting”
News from Wisconsin: “Of the 29 cases that have gone to prosecutors, one has been dropped. In that instance, the district attorney found the felon and voter had the same name (or perhaps alias), address and birth date, but not … Continue reading
“Judge Orders Restoration of Voting Rights for Tens of Thousands of Californians”
Press release: An Alameda County Superior Court judge today ruled that Secretary of State Debra Bowen illegally stripped tens of thousands of people of their voting rights two years ago. His ruling said people on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS) and … Continue reading
“Governor Will Automatically Restore Voting Rights For All Virginians With A Drug Record”
Think Progress reports. … Continue reading
“Despite ruling, Iowa to bar all felons from voting”
AP: “Iowa elections officials will continue to bar convicted felons from voting despite a landmark state Supreme Court ruling that suggests not all of them lost their voting rights, a spokesman said Wednesday.” … Continue reading
“McAuliffe to speed rights restoration”
Times Dispatch: “Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced today that he will shrink the time violent felons must wait to seek reinstatement of their voting rights and will remove some offenses from that list.” … Continue reading
“Iowa Supreme Court splits over what kinds of criminals can vote”
Ryan Koopmans: We didn’t have to wait long for the Supreme Court to decide its most important case of the term. Last Tuesday, the justices heard arguments over whether a second OWI offense is an “infamous crime” under the Iowa … Continue reading
“Iowa finds 12 votes were wrongly rejected in 2012″
AP reports. … Continue reading
Ex-Felon Voting Rights Bill
Press release: U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) has introduced a bill, S. 2235, the Democracy Restoration Act that would reduce recidivism rates by restoring voting rights to individuals after they have served their time and have been released from incarceration. … Continue reading
“Former offender acquitted in Iowa voter fraud case”
AP: A former drug offender who believed her voting rights had been restored when she cast a ballot last year was acquitted of perjury Thursday, a public rebuke of Iowa’s two-year investigation into voter fraud. The 12-member jury took less … Continue reading
“New Report on Restoring Voting Rights for Former Felons”
Project Vote release. … Continue reading
“Kentucky Senate appears poised to approve constitutional amendment on felon voting rights”
Kentucky.com reports. … Continue reading
“Residents And Advocates Sue City Of Cranston Over Redistricting Plan That Counts Incarcerated Population As Residents”
Demos press release. … Continue reading
“Does Michael Mukasey read the Yale Law Journal?”
Oops. … Continue reading
“Michael Mukasey: What Holder Isn’t Saying About Letting Felons Vote”
WSJ oped: The U.S. attorney general told us that statistics can be read to show that felon disenfranchisement laws actually promote recidivism. He said that such laws, which vary from state to state, are rooted in outdated notions going back … Continue reading
NYT Ed Backs AG Holder’s Call on Felon Disenfranchisement
Read. … Continue reading
“Holder Urges States to Repeal Bans on Felons’ Voting”
NYT reports. MORE from HuffPo’s Ryan J. Reilly. … Continue reading
“ACLU contends California must let former prisoners vote”
LA Times reports. … Continue reading
Nine Felon Voting Prosecutions Brought in Iowa
The Des Moines Register reports. … Continue reading
NYT Editorial on Prison Based Gerrymandering
Here. … Continue reading
“In Virginia, Slow Going So Far on Rights Restoration for Felons”
A Chapinblog. … Continue reading
“Rand Paul wants to restore felons’ voting rights”
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
“McDonnell to speed rights process for nonviolent felons”
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Gov. Bob McDonnell today will announce that he is automatically restoring the voting rights of nonviolent felons on an individual basis. The sweeping administrative action – while not an instantaneous blanket restoration – is as far as the … Continue reading
“Va. panel announces findings on restoring voting rights of former felons”
WaPo: A Virginia committee announced options Tuesday for streamlining the restoration of former felons’ voting rights, including actions the governor and legislature could take now to advance the process. The possibilities, the committee said, include recruiting ex-felons who have not … Continue reading
“Escape from the ‘Devonian Amber’: A Reply to Voting and Vice”
Alec Ewald has written this Essay for the Yale Law Journal Online. Here is the abstract: This Essay replies to Richard Re and Christopher Re’s Voting and Vice. That article, recently published in The Yale Law Journal, demonstrates that the … Continue reading
“McDonnell urged to order rights restoration”
News from Virginia. … Continue reading
“Equal Protection Challenge to Virginia’s Felony Disenfranchisement Provision Survives Summary Judgment”
State of Elections: “The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday granted the State’s summary judgment motion on substantive and procedural due process challenges to Virginia’s voter reinstatement process for convicted felons, as well as an Eight Amendment challenge to the … Continue reading
“Virginia Governor Restores Scooter Libby’s Voting Rights”
CBS DC reports. … Continue reading
27% Think Voting Too Easy, 61% Want to Restore Felon Voting Rights
According to a new Rasmussen poll. … Continue reading
“‘I voted early’ sticker leads to arrest, fraud charges”
News from Fla. … Continue reading
“Over 200 organizations ask Census Bureau to develop solutions to ‘prison gerrymandering’”
Press release: “Today, more than 200 civil rights, voting rights and criminal justice organizations sent a letter calling on the U.S. Census Bureau to seize a timely opportunity to research alternative ways to count incarcerated people in the decennial Census.” … Continue reading
“Non-violent felon voting rights measure killed by House panel”
Times Dispatch: “A House of Delegates subcommittee this morning effectively killed proposals to automatically restore the rights of nonviolent felons, something [Virginia] Gov. Bob McDonnell called for in his State of the Commonwealth address.” … Continue reading
“Votes Behind Bars”
Pam Karlan: “The consequences of adopting an essentially negative approach to political voice extend beyond enhanced protection for the political deployment of concentrated wealth and beyond new rules, such as voter ID requirements, that block full participation. The negative approach … Continue reading
“Virginia Governor’s Endorsement Of Rights Restoration Earns Praise From Civil Rights Group”
The Advancement Project has issued this press release. … Continue reading
“Governor urges action on restoring voting rights, roads budget”
News from Virginia: “Gov. Bob McDonnell called for automatic restoration of civil rights for nonviolent felons during his annual State of the Commonwealth address Wednesday night, committing his prestige to a proposal that his own party has resisted for years.” … Continue reading
“A Constitutional Case Against Felony Disenfranchisement Laws”
Color Lines reports. … Continue reading
“Restoring the Vote: Former Felons, International Law, and the Eighth Amendment”
John Ghaelian has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly). Here is the abstract: The right to vote is a right that many Americans cherish. But for over five million Americans the right to vote is something … Continue reading
“NAACP Pushes for Ex-Felons Voting Rights”
CNN reports. … Continue reading
“Has Florida Created a Trap at the Polls for Ex-Felons?”
The Nation reports. … Continue reading
More on the von Spakovsky/Fund Debunked Claims About Fraud and Coleman-Franken
Following up on this post, see Steven Rosenfeld’s thorough debunking. … Continue reading
“Beginning of the end for ‘prison-based gerrymandering’”
Important WaPo oped from Peter Wagner: ” Sandwiched between its controversial immigration, campaign finance and health-carerulings last month, the Supreme Court issued a little-noticed decision in a Maryland case that gave the green light to states to eliminate the repugnant … Continue reading
“Florida leads nation with 10 % of adults not allowed to vote”
Tampa Tribune: “Nearly one-fourth of black Florida adults, and one-tenth of the state’s total voting-age population, aren’t allowed to vote because of the state’s prohibition on voting by former felons, the nation’s highest rate of disenfranchisement, according to a study … Continue reading
“Voting shouldn’t require a credit report
MSNBC Lean Forward’s perspective on Iowa’s process for restoring felon voting rights. … Continue reading
Few Iowa Felons Have Voting Rights Reinstated
The AP reports that fewer than twelve of the over 8000 felons released have regained their right to vote, since the state’s automatic reenfranchisement policy was reversed last year by Gov. Branstad. According to the story, reenfranchisement now requires a full credit report (not just a summary), a criminal history … Continue reading
SCOTUS Affirms Decision Upholding Maryland Law on “Prison Gerrymandering”
The summary disposition in Fletcher v. Lamone affirms a three-judge district court ruling upholding the state’s “No Representation Without Population Act,” which requires that, for redistricting purposes, prisoners be counted at their legal home addresses rather than where they’re incarcerated. Demos’ press … Continue reading
“Big-name Florida felon’s mailbox surprise: a new voter card”
News from Florida (via Dan Smith). … Continue reading
Two Blog Posts by Janai Nelson
African Elections in 2012 on the World Stage and in the Classroom and Viewpoint, Voting, and Structuring the Electorate. … Continue reading
“The First Amendment, Equal Protection, and Felon Disfranchisement: A New Viewpoint”
Janai Nelson has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Article engages the equality principles of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause to reconsider the constitutionality of one of the last and most entrenched barriers … Continue reading
“New York Law Ending Prison-Based Gerrymandering Stands: Plaintiffs Drop Challenge”
Prisoners of the Census: “New Yorkers enjoyed a clear victory today, as plaintiffs in the Little v. LATFOR case dropped their challenge of the state law ending prison-based gerrymandering. The law, known as Part XX, was passed in 2010 to … Continue reading