States Restore Voting Rights for Ex-Convicts

[groovedaddy]

Striding across a sweltering strip-mall parking lot with her clipboard in hand, Monica Bell, a community field organizer in Orlando, Fla., was looking for former convicts to add to the state’s voter rolls.

Antonious Benton, a gold-toothed 22-year-old with a silver skull-shaped belt buckle, a laconic smile and a criminal record, was the first person she approached.

“I can’t vote because I got three felonies,” Mr. Benton told Ms. Bell. He had finished a six-month sentence for possession of $600 worth of crack cocaine, he said. But Ms. Bell had good news for him: The Florida Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican, changed the rules last year to restore the voting rights of about 112,000 former convicts.

“After you go to prison — you do your time and they still take all your rights away,” Mr. Benton said as he filled out a form to register. “You can’t get a job. You can’t vote. You can’t do nothing even 10 or 20 years later. You don’t feel like a citizen. You don’t even feel human.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14felony.html?th&emc=th

[bluestateguy]

1. "Voting is for white people"

No, seriously, someone actually said that to me about 15 years ago.