A.C.L.U. Sues Alabama on Ballot Access

[struggle4progress]

Source: NY Times

By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: July 22, 2008

... Like virtually all states, Alabama restricts the rights of many felons to vote, but in Monday’s suit the group contends the state is going beyond even its own laws. People convicted of nonviolent offenses like income tax evasion or forgery are at risk of being turned away by voter registrars in Alabama, the A.C.L.U. says.

Alabama does not bar all felons from voting, only those convicted of crimes involving “moral turpitude.” In 2003, the civil liberties group says, the State Legislature clearly defined what those crimes are: murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, incest, sexual torture and nine other crimes mainly involving pornography and abuses against children.

At issue in the lawsuit is not the list enacted in law but an expanded “moral turpitude” list developed by the state’s attorney general, Troy King, in 2005. That list includes about a dozen additional offenses, most of them nonviolent, and several including the sale of marijuana ...

The suit asks a state court judge to stop Alabama election officials from turning away any voter with a felony conviction not on the Legislature’s moral turpitude list ...

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/us/22voting.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

[billyoc]

1. That's quite a list. I'm surprised they've got a Republican party left down there.

[enuegii]

2. Speaking of moral turpitude,

and of course, it's just a rumor, I'm sure, but it seems that ol' Troy might have a few problems in that area himself...

[unblock]

3. government should not have the power to take away voting rights, period

there's an obvious moral hazard involved. deciding who can and can not vote, even if it sounds like it's on a legitimate basis, invariably leads to abuse. in this case i don't think the basis even makes any sense.

would potential loss of voting rights prevent any crimes? yeah, right.

so they shift the focus to what the ex-felon "deserves", while ignoring what the government and the politicians deserve.

whatever the perceived societal benefits of preventing felons and ex-felons from voting may be are heavily outweighed by the power granted to cynical politicians to choose who gets to vote in the elections in which they themselves are running. and don't think that this is some dark, far off 1984 kind of thing. blacks are disproportionately arrested and convicted and disenfranchised and democrats, and disenfranchisement laws are disproportionately passed by republicans legislatures and signed by republican governors.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. So, all those Gitmo and other Government torturers can't vote now?

and a long and growing list of republican congress critters.

[MasonJar]

5. Most of the Bushistas would be out of luck in Alabama.