According to the Sentencing Project, an organization advocating a fair and just criminal justice system, about one million ex-felons in Florida have been stripped of their right to vote. The majority of affected former felons are Black. According to a Project Vote report, minority and low-income citizens are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and underrepresented at the polls: "The disenfranchisement rate of African-American men is seven times the national average at 13%."

Until Thursday, Florida was one of three states, including Kentucky and Virginia, that permanently disenfranchised most former felons. While this is a step forward in re-enfranchising American citizens who had already served their sentences, essentially "paying their dues," the Florida rule still does not fully or automatically restore civil rights, and leaves out those who have been released prior to the policy change.

"There isn't even agreement as to how many of those are out there - although it's definitely more than a half million people," AP reporter David Royse wrote.

There are only two states that do not revoke the right to vote as a result of felony conviction; Maine and Vermont.

Restoring the right to vote to ex-felons is an integral aspect of reintegration into society. Consistent policies are necessary to prevent large-scale disenfranchisement not only of the ex-felons themselves, but also of the communities to which they belong. Society as a whole benefits when government truly represents all its citizens.

Not surprisingly, voters from socio-economic communities similar  to those of former felons are potentially disenfranchised by ID requirements, according to the Journal Gazette editorial: "Those who could be turned away are more likely to be poor and/or minority voters - who tend to vote Democratic."

Indiana is one of 26 states that goes beyond the voter ID mandates of the Help American Vote Act of 2002. Even Richard Posner, the federal appeals court judge who wrote the ruling upholding Indiana's ID law, recognized it would deny some people from voting, according to the editorial. Voter ID is generally implemented as a safeguard against voter fraud, but has been shown to suppress voter turnout  while at the same time, address a problem that simply does not exist. Between 2002 and 2005, just 24 people were convicted of illegal voting, averaging 8 convictions per year.

Requiring ID at the polls for eight convictions per year is a hefty price to pay for many Americans. In many cases people simply don't have the required documents. A recent Brennan Center for Justice survey found 11% of Americans do not have government-issued photo ID. This amounts to more than 21 million citizens, disproportionately including the elderly, students, women, people with disabilities, low income people and people of color. Additionally, Voter ID has been shown to disproportionately suppress the turnout of minority voters.

Government at all levels has an obligation to help citizens exercise their rights, including the right to vote. After all, unlike others rights, such as speech, government controls all the mechanisms by which this right is exercised. Laws that create barriers to voting must prove that they are not hindering more legally eligible citizens from voting than they are catching ineligible voters. Given the infrequency of voter fraud in America and the Eagleton Institute findings that show voter ID laws reduce minority participation, voter ID laws clearly fail this cost-benefit test. More information on voter ID can be found in this Project Vote report.

In Other News:

Denver questions culled voter list: State law strips 100,000 from active list for not voting in November, January - The Denver Post
Denver's delegation to the state legislature met with the city's Election Commission on Tuesday out of concern that a troubled election last November could lead to disenfranchised voters May 1.

Learn more about list maintenance from this Project Vote report.

Visit www.Demos.org for more information on Election Day Registration.

Despite High Literacy, Md. Lacks Voter Turnout - Associated Press
(AP) Maryland, one of the best educated and most affluent states in the country, has for years ranked near the bottom in political participation.

"The root of the problem in Maryland is voter registration, because you don't do too bad when you look at turnout among registered voters," said Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services Inc., a Washington company that monitors voting trends." A similar trend may be seen in minority voter participation, as was reported in a recent Project Vote blog entry.

Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote's Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).