Pubdate: Mon, 6 Nov 2000
Source: Nation, The (US)
Page: 21
Contact:  http://www.thenation.com/
Note: This is the 31st in the series of full page ads published by Common 
Sense for Drug Policy. This ad also appeared in the National Review, the 
The New Republic, the Weekly Standard, Reason Magazine and The Progressive. 
The ads -- which look much better than the text below would indicate --make 
great flyers for posting and distributing everywhere. They are available 
for easy downloading and printing in Portable Document Format (PDF) format 
at http://www.csdp.org/ads/

ON NOVEMBER 7, MILLIONS WON'T BE ALLOWED TO VOTE!

Suffrage, the bedrock of the Constitution, is being eroded in the name of 
the War on Drugs.

- -- There are nearly four million persons currently or permanently 
disenfranchised as a result of laws that take away the voting rights of 
felons and ex-felons.

- -- No other democracy besides the U.S. disenfranchises convicted offenders 
for life. Many democratic nations, including Denmark, France, Israel, and 
Poland, permit prisoners to vote as well.

- -- Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of the disenfranchised are not in 
prison but are on probation, on parole or have completed their sentences.

- -- 1.4 million African American men -- 13 percent of the adult African 
American male population -- have lost the right to vote, a rate of 
disenfranchisement that is seven times the national average. By comparison, 
in the 1996 general election 4.6 million African American men voted.

- -- In Florida one in three African American men has permanently lost the 
right to vote.

- -- In five states Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming one 
in four black men (24% to 28%) have permanently lost the right to vote.

Can we expect people to be responsible citizens if they are treated as 
second class citizens?

Common Sense for Drug Policy, Kevin B. Zeese, President 703-354-9050, 
703-354-5695 (fax),  www.csdp.org

Sources - Fellner, Jamie and Mauer, Marc, "Losing the Vote: The Impact of 
Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States (Washington, DC: Human 
Rights Watch & The Sentencing Project, 1998). Mauer, Marc and Allard, 
Patricia, "Regaining the Vote: An Assessment of Activity Relating to Felon 
Disenfranchisement Laws" (Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, January 
2000), from the web at http://www.sentencingproject.org/news/regainvote.htm
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake