cannabisnews.com: On November 7, Millions Won't Be Allowed To Vote On November 7, Millions Won't Be Allowed To Vote Posted by FoM on November 02, 2000 at 22:41:35 PT This is the 31st in the series of full page ads Source: The Nation (US) - -- There are nearly four million persons currently or permanently disenfranchised as a result of laws that take away the voting rights of felons and ex-felons. - -- No other democracy besides the U.S. disenfranchises convicted offenders for life. Many democratic nations, including Denmark, France, Israel, and Poland, permit prisoners to vote as well. - -- Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of the disenfranchised are not in prison but are on probation, on parole or have completed their sentences. - -- 1.4 million African American men -- 13 percent of the adult African American male population -- have lost the right to vote, a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven times the national average. By comparison, in the 1996 general election 4.6 million African American men voted. - -- In Florida one in three African American men has permanently lost the right to vote. - -- In five states Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming one in four black men (24% to 28%) have permanently lost the right to vote. Can we expect people to be responsible citizens if they are treated as second class citizens? Common Sense for Drug Policy,Kevin B. Zeese, President 703-354-9050, 703-354-5695 (fax) Contact: info csdp.orgSource: http://www.csdp.org/Sources - Fellner, Jamie and Mauer, Marc, "Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States (Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch & The Sentencing Project, 1998). Mauer, Marc and Allard, Patricia, "Regaining the Vote: An Assessment of Activity Relating to Felon Disenfranchisement Laws" (Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, January 2000), from the web at: http://www.sentencingproject.org/news/regainvote.htm Note: This is the 31st in the series of full page ads published by Common Sense for Drug Policy. This ad also appeared in the National Review, the The New Republic, the Weekly Standard, Reason Magazine and The Progressive. The ads -- which look much better than the text below would indicate --make great flyers for posting and distributing everywhere. They are available for easy downloading and printing in Portable Document Format (PDF) format at: http://www.csdp.org/ads/Note: Suffrage, the bedrock of the Constitution, is being eroded in the name of the War on Drugs. Newshawk: Richard LakePubdate: Mon, 6 Nov 2000Source: Nation, The (US)Page: 21Contact: letters thenation.comWebsite: http://www.thenation.com/Direct Link: http://mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1649/a08.htmlLift the Ban Against Felons Being Able to Vote http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7171.shtmlCannabisNews MapInc. Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/MAP.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by metallimonz on March 25, 2001 at 18:07:24 PT: a simple solution After reading this article, a scene from 'Liar, Liar', comes to mind. A lawyer recieves a phone call from a client whom he has defended multiple times for the same offences. The lawyer screams into the phone, "STOP BREAKING THE LAW A**HOLE!!! [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by monz on March 25, 2001 at 17:20:27 PT: keep it real How many disenfranchised citizens actually voted anyway. If voting really meant that much to them, they should have obeyed the law, or utilized a more thorough thought process while breaking it. Surely they were all aware of the potential consequences of their actions, yet they still chose to violate it. It has been my experience that avoiding detection while committing minor offences of the law is not that difficult, requiring only a minimal amount of intelligence. I fail to see the reasoning of reporting only the numbers of blacks affected. Is the black vote more important than the white vote? Weren't there any whites who lost the right to vote? What about asians, indians, (both kinds), and other ethnic groups? Reporting only the number of one ethnicity seems somewhat racist. How about reporting the high ratio of whites to blacks being convicted of fraud and embezzlement? By presenting only statistics concerning blacks, you are giving the impression that they are a bunch of criminals. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: