Barred for Life.

• Author: Nixon, Ron
• Position: Ex-felons should have the right to vote

Ex-Cons Deserve the Right to Vote

Twelve years ago, Derrick Gayle, now thirty, fell in with the wrong crowd. He did drugs and dabbled in hot merchandise. He never expected to get caught. But he did. Charged with possession of marijuana and receiving stolen property, he spent nine years in Alabama's Bullock County Correctional Facility.

Gayle was released three years ago. He works a regular job and stays drug free and out of trouble, he says. He has tried to put his past behind him. But the state of Alabama won't let him. He is still denied one of the most basic rights of a free man: He can't vote.

"What more do I have to do to prove that I've repaid my debt to society? I've done my time," says Gayle, who works putting up wallpaper and building bookshelves. "All I want is the right to vote like everyone else."

The state of Alabama permanently bars people convicted of felonies from exercising the right to vote. In a state where some of the hardest battles over voting rights were fought, more than 100,000 black men like Gayle--31 percent of the black male population--are denied the franchise.

This disenfranchisement is not restricted to Alabama, though.

Nine other states disenfranchise felons for life: Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming. Arizona and Maryland permanently disenfranchise those convicted of a second felony; and Tennessee and Washington permanently disenfranchise those convicted prior to 1986 and 1984, respectively. Most other states have intermediate suspensions of voting rights for felons, while four--Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and Utah--do allow felons to vote.

The number of black men excluded from voting is startling. In Florida, as in Alabama, 31 percent of all black men are permanently disenfranchised. In Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming, one in four black men is currently or permanently disenfranchised. In Delaware and Texas, it's one in five. In Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin, 16 to 18 percent are currently disenfranchised.

A report last year, "Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States," put out by the Sentencing Project, a public interest group in Washington, D.C., found that African Americans made up nearly half of those denied the right to vote. An estimated 1.4 million black men--or 13 percent of the entire black male population--were disenfranchised.

Behind the large...