Maryland Delegate plans revision to state law allowing felons to vote

October 14, 3:19 PMMaryland Statehouse ExaminerJ. Doug Gill

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State Pen or 21st Century Voting Booth?     (AP/Johnston)

Randal Horr is not only an inmate at the Bolduc minimum-security prison in Warren, Maine, he is also a newly-registered voter.

Thanks to a voter registration drive by the Maine chapter of the NAACP, Horr is one of more than 200 inmates (in five of the state’s seven adult correctional centers) who can now participate – from prison – in Maine’s upcoming November elections.

State laws on allowing convicted felons to vote vary widely. Maine and Vermont are the only two states that allow currently incarcerated individuals to participate in the election process.

Kentucky and Virginia are the only two that permanently deny voting rights to anyone with a felony conviction, and 13 states (and the District of Columbia) allow probationers and parolees into the voting booth.

Maryland – thanks to the legislature’s 2007 repeal of all the provisions of the state’s lifetime voting ban (which also eliminated the three-year waiting period after completion of sentence for certain categories of offenses) – is among 20 states where all people with felony convictions can vote upon completion of sentence.

Already outraged by the Maryland General Assembly’s decision to restore voting privileges to those who have served time for murder, rape and even child molestation, Delegate Rick Impallaria (R – District 7) plans to introduce legislation during the 2010 session that will “ban anyone who regains their voting rights after committing a felony from ever voting at a polling place.”

Once introduced, Impallaria’s bill will require ex-convicts to register with the State Board of Elections as a “restored voting rights felon,” and the felon will only be permitted to vote by absentee ballot.

“I realized the importance of this step during the last election when, to reach the voting booths, I had to walk past a day care class,” Impallaria said in a statement. “I realized that many polling places are located at schools, churches, and recreation centers -- all places that sexual offenders are forbidden to go, except for this loophole created by the General Assembly’s passage of this absolutely stupid legislation allowing felons to vote.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), more than 5 million people nationwide are prohibited from voting because of criminal convictions.
 

Your lawmakers may not be in session, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t formulating agendas for the 2010 General Assembly. Be proactive, not reactive: contact your legislators now.