THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996 TAG: 9609260011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 55 lines
When a law disproportionately affects one group of people, it may be time to examine why that law was created and how it is being applied.
Frank Green, who covers prisons for The Richmond Times-Dispatch, recently set out to determine the consequences of a segregation-era, state constitutional provision denying most felons the right to vote. What he discovered is startling.
According to the Virginia State Police, about 241,400 felons reside in the commonwealth. If current prison demographics are applied, about 60 percent of those - roughly 145,000 - would be black males. Even if a more-conservative 50 percent were used, the figure would be about 120,000.
Only a small fraction of those men are eligible to vote. Under the state constitution, restoring voting rights is an onerous process, often requiring the assistance of a lawyer and ultimately the consent of the governor. As a result, only about 75 felons each year have their voting rights restored.
Thus, it would be a safe guess that 100,000 or more black male Virginians have lost their right to vote because of prior criminal activity. Even after their societal debt is paid, even if they are working and paying taxes, that right of citizenship eludes them.
The number compares with a political scientist's estimate that 210,000 or so black males are registered to vote in Virginia. That almost half as many black males are barred from voting as do vote demands scrutiny by the public and lawmakers.
Attention should be directed, first, to the social utility of a constitutional ban on voting by felons and, second, to the societal reasons why one group of people is so disproportionately on the wrong side of the law.
On the voting question, Green reports that 37 states either do not take away the voting rights of felons, or readily restore them when their debt to society is paid.
Thirteen states permanently disenfranchise felons. In addition to Virginia, they are Maryland, Kentucky, Nevada, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Washington, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Delaware.
Historically, the provision dates to the 1902 Virginia Constitution, which also included poll taxes and literacy tests in a blatant attempt to disenfranchise blacks.
Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore correctly notes that the constitutional provision is on its face colorblind. And as the rule is applied today, if you break the law - black or white, Gentile or Jew, rich or poor - you pay the price.
The larger point, however, is that neither the history of this law nor its results are race-neutral. Perhaps most important, it serves no useful purpose to forever deny the benefits of a society to individuals whom that society ideally would like to reclaim.
This is a constitutional provision that should be rethought. The more urgent and difficult problem to solve is the ongoing alienation of a substantial group of people from societal norms. by CNB