Panel: Ex-felons should be allowed to vote

Updated 4:00 PM January 27, 2004

Panel: Ex-felons should be allowed to vote

By Jared Wadley
News Service

"We know that Americans of good will have learned that no nation can long continue to flourish or to find its way to a better society while it allows any one of its citizens ... to be denied the right to participate in the most fundamental of all privileges of democracy—the right to vote."'—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ("Civil Rights No. 1: 'The Right to Vote," The New York Times, March 14, 1965)

Ex-felons who served time in federal prison shouldn't be denied their voting privileges, three panelists said during an MLK Symposium event about the right to vote.

Convicted felons can lose their right to vote based on a federal law. While voter apathy is an issue during elections, many prisoners want to exercise their voting rights as American citizens but are not allowed to do so, panelist Juan Cartagena, general counsel of Community Service Society of New York, said during the Jan. 19 event.

"They won't waste any time complaining," he said. "They say, 'You give us the right to vote, we'll vote.'"

The panel, which included U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Marc Mauer, an assistant director of The Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C., discussed "The Right to Vote: Whether Voter Disenfranchisement Laws Impact Communities of Color" at the Law School.

Cartagena represents the plaintiffs in Hayden v. Pataki, which challenges New York state's law of denying suffrage to people incarcerated or on parole for felony conviction and what he argues is the resulting discrimination against Blacks and Latinos in the state. Joseph Hayden, one of 21 minorities named as a plaintiff, is a New York resident who is unable to vote due to a felony conviction.

"They say, 'You give us the right to vote, 'we'll vote.'''
—Juan Cartagena

About 4 million people nationwide—many of them African Americans or Latinos—were ineligible to vote in the 2000 elections because they were behind bars on felony convictions, or because of a prior conviction. These votes could have determined the outcome in the 2000 presidential race, panelists said.

"We might have seen a different course in the elections" had ex-felons been allowed to vote, Mauer said.

But opponents say the law shouldn't be changed, citing the potential of voter fraud. They also say ex-felons are not deserving of all their rights after leaving prison. When weighing other issues facing this country, one of the last things considered is the issue of prisoners' rights—if it is considered at all, Conyers said.

Some audience members, including an ex-felon from Southfield, urged the U-M legal community to assist organizations and elected officials, such as Conyers, to change the law for convicted felons.

Brook Ellis, 49, released last October after spending 11 years in federal prison for unarmed bank robbery, said assistance might involve writing letters to government officials or using one's legal research skills.

It's also important that people who leave prison know their rights, especially related to voting, Ellis said. "They need direction."

Panel: Ex-felons should be allowed to vote

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