Five states consider easing ban on felons voting

February 12, 2000
Web posted at: 10:54 p.m. EST (0354 GMT)

In this story: 4 million felons cannot vote Bill introduced in Congress RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Reporter Kathleen Koch

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fourteen states bar felons from ever voting after their convictions, but as primary season gathers momentum, five are considering relaxing the ban.

The five are Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Nevada and Virginia.

Delaware state Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, a Democrat, said, "There's such a large portion of our population that are disenfranchised and not able to vote once they've been pardoned or paid their debt to society, and I think they need to have the right to vote restored to them."

4 million felons cannot vote

Some 4 million convicted felons in the United States have lost their voting rights.

Advocates of felons' voting rights are alarmed by statistics showing 13 percent of African American males can't vote because of felony convictions. In Delaware, that figure rises to 20 percent.

Alvin Puller, for example, hasn't voted since he served time on a drug charge.

"It seems that because of the one crime, I'm not going to be able to be represented or have a voice, and I don't think it's fair," he said.

Opponents of the change want felons first to have paid off all fines, fees and restitution. Delaware state Sen. James Vaughn, also a Democrat, said, "It won't pass until we can be assured that they have in fact completed their sentence and paid all of the costs that they've been assessed with.

"That's part of their sentence."

Bill introduced in Congress

Some criminal justice experts say that, especially in the South, laws barring felons from voting were initially meant to exclude blacks from the political process.

A bill is being introduced in Congress to allow freed felons to vote in federal elections. One of its sponsors, Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, said, "What we are doing is holding up the rehabilitation process, which is so important."

A former felon who asked to be identified only as "Buddy" echoed Conyers' argument for the change:

"I think it's giving them an incentive to go straight," he said, "because it takes away the feeling of always being a criminal."

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