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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Ex-Offender Voter Rights Confuse Alabama Officials

If you are an ex-offender seeking to vote in Alabama, your voter rights may hinge on which voter list the Alabama Board of Registrars uses to determine your eligibility. Alabama officials have given the registrars conflicting lists regarding which felony convictions prevent individuals from voting.

Alabama law prohibits individuals convicted of felonies of "moral turpitude" from voting, unless their rights are restored. The problem is that the term "moral turpitude" has not been defined by Alabama statute or case law.

According to the Birmingham News, a "statewide computer system for the past 11 months has been noting convictions for more than 400 crimes that Gov. Bob Riley's administration deemed to be felonies of moral turpitude - even though officials with the Administrative Office of Courts said they were assured by Riley's office only a shorter list of 70 felonies developed by the attorney general's office were being checked."

A 2005 opinion by the Attorney General named 28 felonies, or approximately 70 crimes if degrees of each crime are counted, "that have by statute or appellate decision been defined as crimes of moral turpitude," said the Birmingham News.

Jeff Emerson, Communications Director for Gov. Riley, told the Birmingham News that, "until last month, crimes on both lists were being flagged by the computer system. Cost was a factor in not swapping the lists."

Thus, voters who were convicted of felonies that no Alabama statute or appellate decision has ever considered to be a crime of "moral turpitude" have been prevented from registering to vote.

Several groups are paying close attention to efforts to disenfranchise ex-offenders. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit to allow Reverend Kenneth Glasgow to resume registering eligible voters who are incarcerated in Alabama prisons.

To see our blog posting regarding Alabama officials' efforts to prevent groups from conducting voter registration drives inside state prisons, click here.