Alabama GOP Trying to Stop Inmate Voter Registration

[ccharles000]

Yeterday afternoon, Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allan abruptly stopped a voter registration drive for inmates under pressure from the Alabama Republican Party.

In a letter to state Republican Party Chairman Mike Hubbard, Allen said individuals conducting the program "were not doing anything for the inmates that they could not do themselves by simply contacting the Secretary of State's Office for the voter registration postcard."
Still, Allen said he decided to stop the drive because of a section in the state code that prohibits using state-owned property to promote or advance candidates for election.

"While it is not clear that assisting voters to register would violate those provisions, I cannot expose departmental employees to that possibility," he wrote.

Reverened Kenneth Glasgow of Dothan Alabama who has registered a number of voters maintains that this violates constitutional rights of these specific prisoners to register.


Glasgow, a Democrat from Dothan who served time for robbery and drug convictions, said the state is illegally denying people the right to vote. It's a right they maintain despite being in prison, he said.
Glasgow offered a reasonable solution to any worries that this effort be seen as party exclusive.

"I think they're more worried about me being a Democrat than anything," said Glasgow. "The chairman of the Republican Party and the chairman of the Democratic Party can go in there with me and monitor it to make sure it's nonpartisan."

http://www.progressiveelectorate.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=63F1A39E6600743A0BE4E231EB768FA8?diaryId=415

[Curtland1015]

1. These Repig goons should be locked up instead.

Trying to block other people from voting is just about the LEAST American thing you can do.

[Eric J in MN]

2. That's like saying you can't register voters in state park...

...since the state owns the land.

It's ridiculous.

The prohibition against "using state-owned property" is intended to stop politicians from using their government resources to promote themselves, not to stop voter registration in public buildings or on public land.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. And of course, at least 62% of those incarcerated there are black.

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/AL_Black.html

[ccharles000]

4. kick

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Looks like we have another state to keep an eye on this year.

Thank you for posting this, ccharles!