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Biden carries out the largest ever single-day act of clemency, voting rights advocates raise alarm over Trump's pick to lead Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and election denier Kari Lake is tapped to lead Voice of America.

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Alabama felony voting ban leaves thousands disenfranchised as polls open

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Tuesday, November 5, 2024   

As Alabamians head to the polls, some people will be unable to vote in the general election because of a past felony conviction.

Research by The Sentencing Project is spotlighting the more than 227,000 people in Alabama with felony convictions who are denied voting rights.

Nicole D. Porter, senior director of advocacy for The Sentencing Project, said the national total has come down since it peaked in 2016 but still, 4 million Americans are disenfranchised.

"Many of those people are completing their sentence inside of prison and jail but many people are disenfranchised living in the community after incarceration," Porter explained. "They're either on community supervision, on felony probation or parole, or they are postsentence in states such as Mississippi."

In Alabama, a new law is expanding the list of crimes that can take away someone's right to vote. The state legislature recently passed House Bill 100, adding more than 120 new offenses to what's known as "moral turpitude" crimes; convictions leaded to disenfranchisement. However, it will not go into effect until after the 2024 election.

Porter noted the report also highlights racial disparities in felony convictions and reveals that across the country, one in 22 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than triple that of non-African Americans. She added that some Jim Crow-era laws in Alabama have discriminating practices keeping many Black and brown people from voting in the state.

"Because of the underlying punitive practices that contribute to mass incarceration and over-incarceration in the Black and brown communities," Porter stressed. "That extends to even post-incarceration, post-sentence."

The report introduced new data on women being marginalized because of felony convictions. It estimates nationwide approximately 764,000 women make up nearly one-fifth of the total disenfranchised population.


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