Editorials

With November’s elections nearing, Alabama is dragging its feet when it comes to restoring voting rights to people with felony records.

A recent ruling by a Jefferson County circuit court judge would have allowed people with felony records to register to vote, pending a review by the Justice Department. This ruling would have cut through some of the bureaucracy surrounding the restoration of voting rights to felons, especially that whole ambiguous business about “moral turpitude.” But Attorney General Troy King, a Republican, says, “Not so fast.”

King, who is up for re-election this year, plans to appeal this ruling. In the meantime, he sent a letter to registrars throughout the state, instructing them to continue denying some felons the right to vote. It doesn’t matter that these people might have served their required time, adhered to all probationary or parole requirements and paid their fines. They likely won’t get to vote in this year’s elections.

Some argue that felons lose other privileges for life besides the right to vote. For instance, felons lose their right to bear arms, so what’s the big deal?

Let’s get a mental image. In scenario A, we have a felon wielding a firearm. In scenario B, the felon is wielding a voter registration card. One image implies that the person is going back to a life of crime, suggesting that prison and rehabilitation aren’t synonymous. The other implies that sometimes people leave prison better than when they enter.

With all of the challenges felons face, why would King step on a ruling that would make the issue moot?

Former Alabama Republican Party Chairman Marty Connors may have said it best when he said, “… because felons don’t tend to vote for Republicans.”

According to a 2000 study conducted by The Sentencing Project, 210,000 prisoners, felons and parolees in Alabama cannot vote. More than half of them are black, representing 14 percent of the state’s black voting-age population. Traditionally, blacks in Alabama vote Democrat.

Instead of going after this group of potential new voters, the Republican Party has in effect said it doesn’t want them. And the Republicans certainly don’t want the Democrats to have them either.

Continuing to disenfranchise a whole segment of our state’s population for political reasons seems to be the very definition of an act of moral turpitude.