For those interested....
From: Human Rights Watch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Florida Ex-Offenders Barred from Vote Decisive in
Election
31% of State's African American Men Denied Vote
(New York, November 8, 2000) The permanent
disenfranchisement of over
400,000 ex-offenders in Florida is likely to have
determined the
outcome
of the presidential election, two non-partisan
research and advocacy
groups said today. Almost one third of the African
American men in
Florida were unable to vote because of a felony
conviction at some
point
in their past.
Florida is one of only thirteen states that deny the
vote to
ex-offenders who have fully served their sentences. A
1998 report by
Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project
estimated that 436,900
former felons were
disenfranchised in the
state.
Among Florida's African American residents, the impact
of the state's
disenfranchisement laws is
particularly
dramatic: 31.2% of black men in Florida -- more than
200,000 potential
black voters -- were
excluded from the
polls. Assuming the voting pattern of black
ex-felons would have been similar to the vote by black
residents in
Florida generally, the inability of these ex-offenders
to vote had a
significant impact on the number voting for Vice
President Gore.
In their 1998 report, Losing the Vote, Human Rights
Watch and The
Sentencing Project documented state by state the
impact of
disenfranchisement laws across the country. Among the
report's
findings:
Nationally, one in fifty adults, an estimated 3.9
million Americans,
were not able to vote because of a felony conviction.
1.4 million of
these are ex-offenders who have completed their
sentences and are not
in
prison or on probation or parole.
Losing the Vote is available on-line at
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/.
For more information, please see:
Felon Laws Bar 3.9 Million Americans from Voting (HRW
Press Release,
October 22, 1998) at
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/press98/oct/vote1022.htm
US Election 2000 Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony
Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States (HRW
Focus Page)
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/elections/results.htm
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