Laws barring felons from voting hit blacks hard

Catalyst Florida
But race became an issue after the 2000 election turmoil in Florida, where about 600,000 adults, by far the largest number in the country, are barred from voting by the state's felon disenfranchisement law. More than one-quarter of those excluded were African American.

On top of that, prior to the election, Gov. Jeb Bush's administration distributed lists of felons to be certain they would be barred from polling places. But the process also excluded legitimate voters, including some who had their voting rights restored elsewhere in the country.

The battle over laws that prevent felons from voting has intensified since 2000, with right-to-vote groups working to register ex-felons who can vote, and pressing for change in states with restrictive laws.

"In some places we're asking for more clarity on how to regain the right to vote," says Mercano of the Right to Vote Coalition. "In some places we're asking for automatic restoration of the right to vote. It varies, depending on what is realistic for each state."

A class-action lawsuit on behalf of Florida's disenfranchised ex-felons could make its way to the Supreme Court.

National divide
At the national level, Democratic Sens. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barbara Boxer of California are leading voting reform called the Count Every Vote Act of 2005, which would override state's disenfranchisement laws and automatically restore voting rights to felons once they are released from prison.

The proposed legislation is reviled by Republicans, not only because they believe the matter is a states' rights issue, but because they believe Democrats are cynically trying to benefit from voting by ex-felons.

As conservative commentator George Will put it in a recent Newsweek commentary: "Sentimentalism and cold calculation combine to make felons' voting attractive to liberals. ... It is indelicate to say but indisputably true: most felons — not all; not those, for example, from Enron's executive suites — are Democrats. Or at least were they to vote, most would vote Democratic."

But for Robinson, it is a deeply personal, unresolved issue: "When is my debt actually paid? When is it?"

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