Alabama restored voting rights to thousands of former felons, but they may never know
Alabama does not have to notify tens of thousands of former felons that they recently regained the right to vote, a federal judge ruled Friday. The judge also found that the state does not have to automatically restore voting rights to citizens who tried to register but were denied before the state’s law regarding felon disenfranchisement changed this year.
In May, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed a bill defining “moral turpitude,” a century-old, white supremacist phrase in the state constitution that had been used to allow county registrars to arbitrarily block former felons convicted of certain crimes from voting. In practice, the law was used to disenfranchise more than 250,000 Alabamans, most of them black.
After Ivey signed HB 282, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) said he would not dedicate resources to educating people about the change. In an interview with ThinkProgress, he said he has not heard from anyone who is being denied access to the polls and compared voting to a privilege, like receiving free ice cream. Arguing that Merrill’s logic is flawed, the Campaign Legal Center filed a request on behalf of ten former felons asking the state to educate and inform people affected by the new law that they can now vote.
https://thinkprogress.org/alabama-voting-ruling-740d8fb31d71
So to all the folks in Alabama, write letters to the newspapers, and put flyers on telephone poles and in doors, since your government down there doesn't want to inform the public of this change
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