There is an easy answer to this problem.  DON'T COMMIT A FELONY!


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Baier [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 11:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [HP3000-L] OT: Why are millions blocked from voting in the US?


Millions Blocked from Voting in U.S. Election    By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions of U.S. citizens, including a
disproportionate number of black voters, will be blocked from voting in the
Nov. 2 presidential election because of legal barriers, faulty procedures
or dirty tricks, according to civil rights and legal experts.

The largest category of those legally disenfranchised consists of almost 5
million former felons who have served prison sentences and been deprived of
the right to vote under laws that have roots in the post-Civil War 19th
century and were aimed at preventing black Americans from voting.

But millions of other votes in the 2000 presidential election were lost due
to clerical and administrative errors while civil rights organizations have
cataloged numerous tactics aimed at suppressing black voter turnout. Polls
consistently find that black Americans overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

"There are individuals and officials who are actively trying to stop people
from voting who they think will vote against their party and that nearly
always means stopping black people from voting Democratic," said Mary
Frances Berry, head of the U.S. Commission on Human Rights.

Vicky Beasley, a field officer for People for the American Way, listed some
of the ways voters have been "discouraged" from voting.

"In elections in Baltimore in 2002 and in Georgia last year, black voters
were sent fliers saying anyone who hadn't paid utility bills or had
outstanding parking tickets or were behind on their rent would be arrested
at polling stations. It happens in every election cycle," she said.

In a mayoral election in Philadelphia last year, people pretending to be
plainclothes police officers stood outside some polling stations asking
people to identify themselves. There have also been reports of mysterious
people videotaping people waiting in line to vote in black neighborhoods.

Minority voters may be deterred from voting simply by election officials
demanding to see drivers' licenses before handing them a ballot, according
to Spencer Overton, who teaches law at George Washington University. The
federal government does not require people to produce a photo
identification unless they are first-time voters who registered by mail.

"African Americans are four to five times less likely than whites to have a
photo ID," Overton said at a recent briefing on minority
disenfranchisement.

Courtenay Strickland of the Americans Civil Liberties Union testified to
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last week that at a primary election in
Florida last month, many people were wrongly turned away when they could
not produce identification.

BLACKS' BALLOTS REJECTED

The commission, in a report earlier this year, said that in Florida, where
President Bush won a bitterly disputed election in 2000 by 537 votes, black
voters had been 10 times more likely than non-black voters to have their
ballots rejected and were often prevented from voting because their names
were erroneously purged from registration lists.

Additionally, Florida is one of 14 states that prohibit ex-felons from
voting. Seven percent of the electorate but 16 percent of black voters in
that state are disenfranchised.

In other swing states, 4.6 percent of voters in Iowa, but 25 percent of
blacks, were disenfranchised in 2000 as ex-felons. In Nevada, it was 4.8
percent of all voters but 17 percent of blacks; in New Mexico, 6.2 percent
of all voters but 25 percent of blacks.

In total, 13 percent of all black men are disenfranchised due to a felony
conviction, according to the Commission on Civil Rights.

"This has a huge effect on elections but also on black communities which
see their political clout diluted. No one has yet explained to me how
letting ex-felons who have served their sentences into polling booths hurts
anyone," said Jessie Allen of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York
University.

Penda Hair, co-director of the Advancement Project, which seeks to ensure
fair multiracial elections, recently reported that registrars across the
country often claimed not to have received voter registration forms or
rejected them for technical reasons that could have been corrected easily
before voting day if the applicant had known there was a problem.

Beasley said that many voters who had registered recently in swing states
were likely to find their names would not be on the rolls when they showed
up on Election Day.

"There is very widespread delay in the swing states because there have been
massive registration drives among minorities and those applications are not
being processed quickly enough," she said.

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