Outcasts at the ballot box

The Courier Journal wrote a strong piece today about Voting Rights for former felons and the Sentencing Project report that came out yesterday.

Outcasts at the ballot box

One in five African Americans in Kentucky aren't eligible to vote because of convictions. In Indiana, the number is 2.4%.

Nearly a quarter of the state's black residents are banned from being heard at the ballot box because of strict laws that have stripped voting privileges from more than 243,000 Kentuckians convicted of felonies, according to a study released Thursday by criminal justice reform advocates.

In all, more than 7 percent of Kentucky residents of voting age are banned from casting ballots – one of the six highest rates in the country, according to The Sentencing Project study of 2010 data. Kentucky is second – behind only Florida – when it comes to the rate of disenfranchised African Americans.

“This reflects major disparities of long standing,” said Chris Uggen, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the report.

Kentucky law permanently bars felons from voting, unless they get a pardon from the governor, making the statutes among the most restrictive in the United States.

By contrast, fewer than 1 percent of Indiana residents of voting age, or about 29,000 people, are ineligible to cast ballots in that state, which only puts voting restrictions on current inmates.

You can read the rest of the story on The Courier Journal's website here.