Obama's Felon Disenfranchisement Challenge

There is a dangerous election issue brewing and a Washington Post story last week provides a good foreshadow: felon enfranchisement. The Post reported on Reggie Mitchell,  a Floridian (and not insignificantly, an Obama supporter) who is working to assist those convicted of felonies to regain the franchise.    (A new Virginia law will allow over 100,000 previously disenfranchised citizens to vote.)  As Christopher Uggen and Jeff Manza have suggested, felon disenfranchisement laws have swung multiple elections to Republicans - including the 2000 Bush - Gore race.  And felon disenfranchisement laws deliver a grossly disproportionate hit to the African-American community.  As the Post reported, until Florida recently changed its law on this issue, 1/3 of the state's African-American men were denied the vote.  For more information about the issue, I encourage everyone to look at Uggen and Manza's book, Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy.  (Google gives us some of it here.)

The reality is that Obama, like all Democrats, is likely to benefit when convicted offenders are allowed to vote.   At the same time, one thing Obama cannot afford is to be seen as a person seeking the "felon vote" - both because being a friend of criminals is bad political karma and because, in Obama's particular racialized position, this could have the effect of making him look like he's the candidate of Black criminals.   This is a complicated position for Democrats.  And it's going to get much more complicated as the election approaches.

If past elections are any guide, we can expect Republican election officials to work aggressively to weed out convicted felons from voting rolls.  Sometimes - maybe even often - this effort will result in fully eligible voters being expunged from the rolls.  Eligible voters will come in different types, most commonly those where there is a name mix-up and those who are convicted felons, but have - for one reason or another - regained the right to vote.    But the very act of fighting for the rights of those entitled to vote who have been erroneously disenfranchised  (a much less politically charged project than Mitchell's work in Florida) will trigger many of the complicated issues I've discussed above.  And the very fact that Obama may find it difficult to aggressively advocate for those entitled to vote may embolden Republicans to choose an extra-aggressive expungement strategy.

The Democrats cannot afford to abandon any of these prospective voters.  And the Republicans may feel that they cannot afford to underenforce felon disenfranchisement laws - particularly in swing states - since these voters are likely to tilt to the left.  But there are risks for everyone - including Republicans, who must worry that expungement strategies will be seen as explicitly designed to suppress African American vote numbers. 

Keep your eyes open.  I'd be very surprised if this issue doesn't rear it's head, perhaps with some intensity, in the weeks before the election.

(Image from the Nebraska League of Women Votes website.)

Comments

[John McCain Shirts]

Yea this is the same trick every time.

[K in Va.]

Everyone needs a second change. Why should a felon pay taxes? In some states a felon can't receive federal aid, houseing, or education. If a felon have his/her own business, and paying taxes. It would be taxation without represention. Our government need to do the right thing, and enclude this people in the American illusion of a dream. You can't be free, if you brother is disenfranish. It could be you!!!!