Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 08:40:34 -0800 (PST)

Electoral Disenfranchisement (of ex-felons) in Florida

Irvine -- Did the Clinton Administration's drug policies cost Al Gore the presidential election?

Instead of blaming the U.S. Supreme Court, could draconian Federal drug policies that have incarcerated thousands of blacks in Florida have led to George W. Bush becoming the likely president?

That's what Jenni Gainsborough at The Sentencing Project suggests, when she looks at voting laws in Florida that have disenfranchised convicted felons. They can't vote. Not all states bar convicted felons from voting. A 1998 report by Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project found that 436,900 ex-felons in Florida couldn't vote. According to the Sentencing Project:

"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 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."

The full report (Losing the Vote, The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States) and other reports on the disenfranchisment of black voters is linked at the sentencing project's Web-site: www.sentencingproject.org/news/news.html.

Subversity, a KUCI public affairs interview program, this evening features a conversation between Gainsborough and show host Dan Tsang on this topic. Subversity airs from 5-6 p.m. on KUCI, 88.9 fm in Orange County, Calif., and is Web-cast simultaneously via kuci.org.

To chat with our guest, please call (949) 824-5824 during the show, or e-mail subversity@kuci.org.

dan

Daniel C. Tsang
Host, Subversity, now Wednesdays, 5-6 p.m.
Host, Alternative News, now Wednesdays, 4-5 p.m.
KUCI, 88.9 FM and Web-cast live 
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E-mail: dtsang@kuci.org
Daniel Tsang, KUCI, PO Box 4362, Irvine CA 92616
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