AL prison commissioner halts prison voter reg drive
Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am | By: Radical Russ
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — 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.”
Still, 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.
A coalition of groups had started registering inmates to vote this week. Their goal was to get the inmates to request absentee ballots and cast them in the general election Nov. 4.
Allen’s letter to Hubbard was in response to one the chairman e-mailed him earlier in the day, saying the GOP supports the idea of registering more people to vote, but not when it comes to prisoners.
Alabama law prohibits felons convicted of “crimes of moral turpitude” from voting unless they have had their rights restored. State law doesn’t define such crimes, but court opinions have said they include major offenses like murder, robbery and rape plus some lesser offenses, like taking a stolen car across state lines.
Confusion over which crimes involve “moral turpitude” has led to litigation seeking the restoration of prisoners’ voting rights. The most recent was filed in July by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of three ex-inmates.
Let’s just not mince words here:
- Republicans in Alabama do not want people in prison to register to vote.
- Alabama’s got 17,354 African-American prisoners and 11,837 white prisoners.
- African-Americans tend to vote 90% Democratic.
This story reveals what the Nixon war was all about. If you can’t beat ‘em, lock ‘em up!
This is why Bush won in Florida and a few other states. Many Blacks vote Democrat so they are easy targets by the right wing gouls. In the 60’s you could tell a Demo if he had long hair and of course they all did pot (drugs). So lock up the long hair Demos and we’ll call it a War on …….. Freedom?