All of Us or None wrote letters to the 58 counties within California that oeprate jail facilities, asking what their policies were for implementaton and education regarding honoring an inmate's right to vote while in county jail. Many different reponses were received and found that many weren't aware that inmates serving time in county jail for felony sentences had the right to vote under California state law.
As a result, All of Us or None set up an meeting with the Secretary of State, presenting her with suggestions on how to go about getting the correct information to eligible inmates. In addition, the ACLU created a pamphlet with instructions on who is eligible to vote in the state of California and how to obtain an absentee ballot while in county jail.
On a FEDERAL LEVEL:
The House subcommittee has taken arguments on a new proposed bill that would require states to allow felons to vote in federal elections once they're released from prison. The bill is called the Democracy Restoration Act, and it is being sponsored by John Conyers who is a democrat representing the state of Michigan. Conyers is also Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The findings of the bill note that "given current rates of incarceration, approximately one in three of the next generation of African-American men will be disenfranchised at some point their lifetime." The signing and passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, makes the last read sentence in this posting a sad fact and statistic. For reasons of both principle and sensible social policy, Congress should step in and give ex-offender the right to vote.
Anyway, the question for my "legal scholars and friends" is not who you or I think should be entitled to vote. That is not the system under which we live in. Our Constitution has the potential to delivery promise and guaranteed voting rights no matter what a person's opinion is or how well that opinion is founded. The next issue is of course, if it does not, does the Federal government have the power to enforce on the States its judgment on the matter? As my mother would say on this one, "Some things are an act of God, other things are an act of Congress." I guess this is the first step in exhausting all administrative remedies before we have to appeal to heaven.
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