Legal Commentary

Alabama Republicans Move to Block Prisoner Voting Registration

By Jeralyn

The AP reports:

Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen stopped a voter registration drive for inmates Thursday under pressure from the Alabama Republican Party.

In a letter to state Republican Party Chairman Mike Hubbard, Allen said individuals conducting the program "were not doing anything for the inmates that they could not do themselves by simply contacting the Secretary of State's Office for the voter registration postcard."

Allen's absurd rationale: [More...]

Allen said he decided to stop the drive because of a section in the state code that prohibits using state-owned property to promote or advance candidates for election.

While it is not clear that assisting voters to register would violate those provisions, I cannot expose departmental employees to that possibility," he wrote.

Loretta Nall has more.

The problem with this flimsy excuse is that no candidate was being promoted. All we were doing was registering those in jail who are eligible to vote UNDER STATE LAW. No one was supporting McCain or Obama. No names were mentioned during the registration. However, as I mentioned before most of those in jail or prison for drug charges are black despite the fact that blacks and whites use drugs at the same rate and the Republicans know this. Hell, they are largely responsible for this. How convenient the drug war is for marginalizing certain classes of people for political gain.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 19, 2008 (boomark / email).