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In Alabama, a Fight to Regain Voting Rights Some Felons Never Lost

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

By SHAILA DEWAN NY Times March 2, 2008 DOTHAN, Ala. ? The Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, onetime criminal and founder of a ministry called The Ordinary People Society, spent years helping people with criminal records regain the right to vote in Alabama, where an estimated 250,000 people are prohibited from voting because of past criminal activity. Then he discovered that many of them had never actually lost the right. Because of a quirk in its Constitution, Alabama disqualifies from voting only those who have committed a ?felony involving moral turpitude.? Those who have committed other felonies ? like marijuana possession or drunken driving ? can cast ballots even if they are still in prison, according to the state attorney general. But it has been slow work cajoling public officials to enforce and publicize the law...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on March 02, 2008 (boomark / email).