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Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who leaves office in January, today encouraged people with nonviolent felony convictions who have paid their debt to society to apply to have their voting rights restored. Speaking on his monthly call-in radio show on WTOP in Washington, Kaine noted that both he and his predecessor as governor, Mark R. Warner, have restored the rights of more Virginians than any of the previous governors of the commonwealth combined. Virginia and Kentucky are the only states that require people who have lost their rights through felony convictions to apply for reinstatement. In addition to voting rights, convicted...

RICHMOND | Civil rights organizations are asking Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to sign an executive order restoring the rights of nearly 300,000 felons before he leaves office in January. Virginia and Kentucky are the only two states that permanently strip felons of their civil rights, such as voting, serving on juries or holding public office. In Virginia, the power to restore those rights lies solely with the governor. Mr. Kaine has restored rights to more than 4,000, felons, a greater number than under any other Virginia governor. He and former Gov. Mark Warner, a fellow Democrat, restored more altogether than...

Former Ohio Democrat Eligible to Run, But Does He Have Support? --- He may be down, but don't count him out. Former Democratic congressman James Traficant, fresh off completing a seven year prison term for a bribery and racketeering conviction, says he has not ruled out running for Congress again. "I'm not sure at this point," Traficant told CNN on Monday when asked if he would seek reelection. "Both parties would not want to see me in Washington, believe me… I was very controversial down there." Traficant, known for his flamboyant appearance and fiery political speeches, served nine terms representing...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government sent about 3,900 economic stimulus payments of $250 each this spring to people who were in no position to use the money to help stimulate the economy: prison inmates. The checks were part of the massive economic recovery package approved by Congress and President Barack Obama in February. About 52 million Social Security recipients, railroad retirees and those receiving Supplemental Security Income were eligible for the one-time checks. Prison inmates are generally ineligible for federal benefits. However, 2,200 of the inmates who received checks got to keep them because, under the law, they were...

There is no way, a freeloading governmental health plan, run by civil servants with little or no accountability can ever hope to compete against the profit driven private sector, who's very existence and survival is on the line daily, prompting a degree of responsibility, quality and customer satisfaction that assures fewer mistakes are made, and insuring by the very nature of capitalism, an ever expanding thirst for better, faster, and cheaper service....

The inspector general's office for the Social Security Administration is looking into the problem as part of its broader audit on stimulus spending. The Social Security Administration acknowledged the $425,000 glitch following a report that nearly two-dozen inmates in Massachusetts had wrongly received the $250 stimulus checks.

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EDITORIAL: The franchise for felons Sotomayor would let prisoners vote May 29, 2009 Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor wants to give jailbirds the right to vote. It's her opinion that the federal Voting Rights Act can be used to force states to allow voting by currently imprisoned felons. Ms. Sotomayor's dissenting opinion in a 2006 felon-voting case should make senators extremely wary of confirming her for the high court. In Hayden v. Pataki, a number of inmates in New York state filed suit claiming that because blacks and Latinos make up a disproportionate share of the prison population, the state's...

One of the biggest annoyances to the Left in recent years has been the Constitutional right of states to prohibit felons from voting. They have filed lawsuit after lawsuit (unsuccessfully) under the Voting Rights Act trying to overturn these laws. Fortunately, except for the Ninth Circuit (as usual), other circuit courts of appeal have properly recognized the constitutional authority of the states and have also held that the legislative history shows that Congress obviously did not consider such state laws to be subject to the prohibitions in the Voting Rights Act. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution specifically recognizes the...

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor wants to give jailbirds the right to vote. It's her opinion that the federal Voting Rights Act can be used to force states to allow voting by currently imprisoned felons.

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- For tens of thousands of convicted felons in Washington state, only one thing stands between them and the ballot box: debt. The Associated Press reported that under current law, felons can't vote until they have served their sentences, including the completion of any parole or probation, and paid all restitution and other court fees. A measure to remove that payment requirement -- opponents say it's akin to a modern-day "poll tax" -- has passed the House and awaits action in the Senate. If it becomes law, felons could simply re-register to vote once they're no longer in...

The only senator to verbally challenge Espero was Sen. Sam Slom, R-Hawaii Kai, who joked that this is the premier bill presented by the “criminal lobby.”

In an unexpected twist to the economic crisis, several US states are weighing whether to abolish the death penalty as the execution process proves too great a drain on dwindling resources. Death penalty laws remain on the books of 36 of the 50 US states, and capital punishment is supported by some two-thirds of the American public. But across the nation, states as diverse and far-flung as Montana, Kansas, New Mexico and Maryland are among those actively considering abolishing capital punishment in a bid to overcome ballooning budget shortfalls. "It is quite unusual that we've seen this blossoming of state...

Interesting correlation Chicago police dept has no mugshots with Bush on their t-shirts. This was sent by a Chicago Police Officer, by the way...

ST. PAUL, Minn.—A convicted felon who got a break from a judge who delayed his sentencing so he could vote failed to show up in court. Twenty-four-year-old Javontez Lavel Ross pleaded guilty to a drug charge Sept. 11. Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan agreed then to delay his sentencing so he could vote in what she called a "historic election." Felons can't vote until they finish serving their prison time and probation. When Ross failed to return to court Wednesday, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. Marrinan said she didn't regret granting the delay.

Being behind bars didn’t bar some Passaic County Jail inmates from voting this week. In what some officials are saying is a first for the county, 22 men and women in the jail’s cell blocks used absentee ballots to vote. "We’ve been encouraging any inmates who are eligible under the law to vote," said Bill Maer, spokesman for the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jail. "This is one of the first times we had a concentrated program to encourage inmates to participate in the election." Nearly all of the eligible inmates who cast a ballot registered to vote...

Our local Fox affiliate in the Twin Cities gave a last-minute update on ACORN and its efforts to register voters, over and over again.  The latest scandal appears to be ACORN’s registration of convicted felons — from prison: Tomorrow may set a record for voter turnout in Minnesota, but the Fox 9 Investigators discovered one group registered to vote, who shouldn’t be voting at all. They’re convicted felons, and in some cases they’re registering to vote from prison. How is that possible? Reporter Tom Lyden searched hundreds of thousands of data records to find the answers. Fox 9 does not...

"Ever since we launched the statewide voter registration database back in January, 2006, we have been able to remove 160,000 invalid registrations, including a number who were signed up in more than one county, voters who had died, and convicted felons who have not had their voting rights restored," said state Elections Director Nick Handy. "But we would be the first to acknowledge that dealing with felon voters is a work in progress. Ultimately, we need state lawmakers to clear the way by passing reform legislation." The state aggressively uses reliable and current data to scrub the voter rolls four...

Fairfax County elections staff visited jail to register inmates By William C. Flook Examiner Staff Writer 10/8/08 Inmates at the Fairfax County jail were encouraged to register and vote last week by elections officials making what the county’s sheriff called the first visit of its kind in his 30 years with the county. That voter turnout effort is now being defended by county officials, but blasted by Republicans who called it an attempt to influence what could be a close presidential election in the commonwealth. Both Fairfax County General Registrar Rokey Suleman and Sheriff Stan Barry deny any wrongdoing in...

PORTSMOUTH Sheriff Bill Watson wanted to get absentee ballots to a special group of shut-ins who won't be able to make it to the polls on Election Day: the prisoners in his jail. Last week, he offered applications to inmates. One hundred fifty-three of them wanted to vote, but only 17 inmates were registered and will receive ballots, Lt. Karin Johnson, a spokeswoman, said Friday. Registration drives have caused the commonwealth's voter rolls to swell since the last presidential election. Law-and-order candidates needn't worry too much, though. As in the 580-prisoner Portsmouth City Jail, a modest number of inmates are...

McCahill imposed the full 15 years that a jury in April said Bevel should serve for having sex with one of his daughters in the 1990s, when they lived in Leesburg. Under Virginia law, McCahill could decrease, but not increase, the jury's sentence. Bevel's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Bonnie H. Hoffman, told McCahill that it would be regrettable if a man "who brought the vote to so many people" did not get to cast a ballot in such a historic election as this year's. Hoffman said she will appeal.

Just on Fox. 30,000 for sure; another 30,000 "can't be verified yet." This election is being stolen in front of our eyes.

Thousands who should be ineligible are registered to vote More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.

When the election rolls around in November, a large, traditionally Democratic constituency will be missing. Many would expect this constituency to come out in droves to support Barack Obama, but this group of men will not cast their ballot for the African-American presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. These men will be noticeably absent from the polls, not because of apathy or anger or any of the other traditional voting deterrents; these men will remain away from the voting booths because they are legally prohibited due to felon disenfranchisement laws. Felon disenfranchisement laws have resulted in the loss of the right to...

RICHMOND, Va. - Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons walking Virginia's bleakest neighborhoods on the hunt for ex-cons — each a potential voter who might cast the decisive ballot in this hotly contested state. Finding them isn't the hard part. It's getting them to admit that a past mistake has kept them from the ballot box. "People are really, really reluctant to say, 'I lost my rights to vote,'" Bailey said of his quest, which continued in the run-up to Monday's registration deadline in Virginia for the November election. Nationally, there are roughly 4 million released...

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine has granted voting rights to nearly 1,500 felons this year, bumping up the voter rolls ahead of next month's presidential election and putting himself on pace to exceed the record-setting pattern of his predecessor. During his four years as governor, Mark Warner, a Democrat now running for the U.S. Senate, restored voting rights to 3,414 ex-convicts in Virginia. That exceeded the combined total for all Virginia governors during the previous 20 years, according to the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Obama Loves Our Servicemen – But Not Their Voting RightsBy Brad O’Leary Many assume that the presidential debates help the public discern where each candidate stands on the issues.  If only this were true.  It is a most unfortunate irony that, much of the time, these made-for-TV sparring matches accomplish little more than to enable a candidate to pull yet another layer of wool over the eyes of John Q. Public.  A case-in-point from last Friday’s showdown is Barack Obama’s professed honor and concern for our men and women in the military.  Me thinks he doth profess too much. “[W]e honor all...

Jan Schakowsky.Schakowsky represents the 9th Congressional District in Northern Illinois.Schakowsky is married to convicted felon Robert Creamer.As the AP reported: The husband of an Illinois congresswoman was sentenced to five months in federal prison Wednesday for writing rubber checks and failing to pay withholding taxes. Robert Creamer, 58, also faces 11 months of house arrest once he finishes his sentence. Robert Creamer has strong ties to Obama,as Tom Roeser reports: Robert Creamer, the husband of U. S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill) who was sentenced to jail for running a community group and paying himself big bucks while banks held the...

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A man facing prison time on a drug charge has gotten a break from a judge -- so that he can vote. Twenty-four-year-old Javontez Lavel Ross pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing several bags of suspected heroin with intent to sell. But he asked Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan to postpone his sentencing so he could vote in the Nov. 4 election. Ross, who said he recently moved to the Twin Cities from Chicago, would have been barred from voting if he had been sentenced before Election Day. The judge granted his request, calling the contest...

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and American Civil Liberties Union of Florida launched a voter registration campaign Monday targeting convicted felons whose rights have been restored. ''Our nation's future is at stake,'' say campaign ads featuring models with booking photos over their mouths. ``Your voice shouldn't be silenced by your past.'' Designed by a Miami ad agency, the ads will be displayed in minority communities across the state, including in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and will be splashed on buses in English and Spanish. Last year, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Legislature changed the laws to make it easier...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama Republican Party opposes a drive to register inmates to vote so they can cast absentee ballots from inside state prisons, with the state GOP chief saying Thursday there needs to be safeguards against voter fraud. State Rep. Mike Hubbard, chairman of the party, told Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen in a letter delivered by e-mail that the party supports the idea of registering more people to vote, but not when it comes to prisoners. "Furthermore, I have concerns about potential issues with how this effort is being monitored to ensure no form of voter fraud...

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...

Twenty-four-year-old Javontez Lavel Ross pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing several bags of suspected heroin with intent to sell. But he asked Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan to postpone his sentencing so he could vote in the Nov. 4 election......... The judge granted his request, calling the contest a "historic election." She set his sentencing for Nov. 12.

TALLAHASSEE - Herbert Pompey had gone through rehab, stayed sober, held a job, married and started a landscaping business in the two years since he walked out of Taylor Correctional Institution. But what Pompey hadn't done -- and what he assumed a string of felony drug and DUI convictions would keep him from ever doing again -- was vote. So his pulse quickened when civil rights lawyer Reggie Mitchell called to tell him that his rights had been restored. "You're eligible to vote now, Mr. Pompey," Mitchell said, calmly relaying the news. "Can I bring you a voter-registration card?"

(CNN) — Support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama extend to death row Wednesday. According to The Jackson Clarion Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop's final words before being executed Wednesday night included an appeal to Americans to vote for the Illinois senator. "For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said, according to the paper.

Leon Quinn got out of prison in New York last year, moved to North Carolina and tried to start a new life. But employers don’t want to hire a convicted felon, and it’s hard to get your own place when you don’t have a job, he said. “It’s like we’re marked as criminals,” Quinn said. “It’s like we don’t have a say.” But, Quinn learned Saturday he does have a say, even with a felony conviction. In North Carolina, people convicted of a felony can vote, once they’ve served their time behind bars and completed the terms of their probation...

Could Felons' Votes Give Tennessee to Obama?

A new state rule in Florida calls for more than 115,000 former felons who complete their sentences to be given back their civil rights, including the right to vote, hold public office, serve on a jury, and obtain state and local licenses for certain types of work. The rule by the state’s Board of Executive Clemency ends a policy that, until now, required a panel to act individually on every restoration of rights requests. Florida Governor Charlie Crist – attending a two-day summit of state officials, lawmakers, community activists, prison ministers and others brainstorming ideas for keeping former inmates from...

Civic and social organizations

Translated by me: - Anchorwoman says that Hillary is heavily favored by the Puerto Rico prison population, which voted in the span of the past 2 days (Thurs. & Fri.) - Prisoners voting are dressed in grey and blue prison garb in the video. - Prisoner #1: "Hillary gives us hope; we're going through a really bad economic crisis". -Prisoner #2: "We need a change in life. All changes are necessary in life". -Prisoner #3: "We're a U.S. territory and the relationship we have with the U.S. could benefit us from getting out of this economic rut". -Prisoner #4: "We're...

The get-out-the-vote effort in Maine broke new ground Wednesday when more than 200 inmates in the Maine State Prison registered to cast ballots. Prison officials said it was the first prisoner education and registration drive held at the facility. Deputy Warden Leida Dardis said the event, which was organized by Maine chapters of the NAACP, allowed representatives from the state Democratic, Republican and Green Independent parties to meet with prisoners in morning and afternoon informational sessions. Maine and Vermont are the only states that give people convicted of felonies the right to vote while in prison. Some states bar felons...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Keith Ellison said Friday he'll pursue legislation that would require states to let ex-felons vote in federal elections once they're out of jail or prison, which would nullify laws in states across the country, including Minnesota. Ellison, a freshman Minnesota Democrat, had introduced legislation to let ex-felons vote when he was in the Minnesota Legislature. Now he's aiming for a bigger impact. "Allowing felons to vote signals our value on redemption," he said in an interview. "We should believe in second chances. We should believe in redemption."

OJ endorses Hillary Clinton in TV interview

The state’s top litigator is trying to quash efforts by the ACLU to make it easier for some convicted felons to vote. In legal papers filed in U.S. District Court, Arizona Solicitor General Mary O’Grady said there is nothing illegal about automatically disenfranchising people who have been convicted of at least two felonies. She said both the U.S. and Arizona constitutions specifically permit states to take away voting rights. O’Grady also is urging Judge Stephen McNamee to reject the contention of the American Civil Liberties Union that the state should stop requiring those who have been convicted of just one...

The state has automatically restored voting rights to nearly 16,000 felons in the two months since a rules change that Republican Gov. Charlie Crist sought to help parolees re-establish themselves, his office said Wednesday. That compares to fewer than 14,000 former offenders that had their rights restored without a hearing in the year before the changes, which allow the Florida Parole Commission to restore those rights without a hearing. "They're having great success and it will only get better as we move along," Crist said. "I'd always rather have more, but I'm pleased with the progress and look forward to...

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of five convicted felons challenges a state law that denies voting rights to those who have been convicted of two or more felonies. Under the law, felons can have their right to vote restored only by getting permission from a judge. The suit also challenges a provision of Arizona law that says those convicted of a single felony must pay restitution before their voting rights can be restored. “Denying the right to vote based on one’s failure to pay financial obligations is unfair,” ACLU...

PHOENIX — Five Arizona felons filed suit Thursday challenging state laws that keep them from voting because of their criminal convictions. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix by the American Civil Liberties Union challenges a state law that denies certain rights to those who have been convicted of at least two felonies. These felons can vote only by getting permission from a judge. Alessandra Soler Meetze, director of the ACLU's Arizona chapter, says this is the first lawsuit in the nation seeking to overturn any state law that automatically disfranchises felons. The legal papers separately challenge another Arizona...

In a decision that could impact tens of thousands of current state residents, the Senate approved a bill that will allow all convicted criminals, including those found guilty of multiple violent crimes, to vote again after they have completed their court-ordered sentence. Most Senate Democrats ignored the concerns of Republicans, defeating three amendments before voting 28-19 to pass the bill on March 23. Five Democrats joined 14 Republicans in voting against the bill. On the same day, the House postponed debate on its version of the proposal, and is scheduled to resume on March 26. In the Senate, supporters of...

Court Restores Inmates' Voting Rights Thursday, December 28, 2006 A state appeals court is restoring the voting rights of about 100,000 local jail inmates across the state who are serving a year or less for felony convictions. The state said it would not appeal the decision from the 1st District Court of Appeal. The affected inmates were eligible to vote until last year, when the state disenfranchised them. For three decades, California's secretary of state had interpreted that the state Constitution barred voting by those in state prisons and those on parole. The appeals court said in it's decision last...