Ala. GOP pressure ends prisoner registration drive

[ensho]

http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-38/1221771858303520.xml&storylist=alabamanews


Alabama Prisons Commissioner Richard Allen stopped a voter registration drive for inmates Thursday 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.

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The commissioner, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Bob Riley, said his department also did not want to invite a situation "where perhaps dozens of volunteers or even the candidates themselves will show up at a prison to register potential voters."

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Hubbard's letter came two days after The Associated Press reported that a coalition of groups led by a community activist, the Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, began registering inmates to vote in state lockups this week. Nearly 80 filled out registration forms in two days.

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"I'm just appalled," Glasgow said after learning of Allen's decision. "How can the people who are supposed to be upholding the law break the law?"
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Ala. is such a lovely state - bully, bribe, blackmail, threaten, murder - the GOP neo con way.

[DS1]

1. And they spent all that time locking up black people

such a shame


:sarcasm:

[ensho]

2. kicking for the jailed who can't register to vote

nt