[Announce-DAN] fw: Florida Ex-Offenders Barred from Vote Decisive in Election

["natasha nummedal" <nnummedal@earthlink.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Human Rights Watch <hrwatchnyc@igc.org>
To: hrw-news@igc.topica.com <hrw-news@igc.topica.com>
Date: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 4:06 PM
Subject: Florida Ex-Offenders Barred from Vote Decisive in Election 


>Florida Ex-Offenders Barred from Vote Decisive in Election               
>  31% of State's African American Men Denied Vote 
>
>(New York, November 8, 2000) The permanent disenfranchisement of over 
>400,000 ex-offenders in Florida is likely to have determined the outcome 
>of the presidential election, two non-partisan research and advocacy 
>groups said today. Almost one third of the African American men in 
>Florida were unable to vote because of a felony conviction at some point 
>in their past.
>
>Florida is one of only thirteen states that deny the vote to 
>ex-offenders who have fully served their sentences. A 1998 report by 
>Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project estimated that 436,900     
>                        former felons were disenfranchised in the state.
>
>Among Florida's African American residents, the impact of the state's    
>                         disenfranchisement laws is particularly 
>dramatic: 31.2% of black men in Florida -- more than 200,000 potential 
>black voters -- were                             excluded from the 
>polls. Assuming the voting pattern of black                             
>ex-felons would have been similar to the vote by black residents in 
>Florida generally, the inability of these ex-offenders to vote had a 
>significant impact on the number voting for Vice President Gore. 
>
>In their 1998 report, Losing the Vote, Human Rights Watch and The 
>Sentencing Project documented state by state the impact of 
>disenfranchisement laws across the country. Among the report's findings: 
> Nationally, one in fifty adults, an estimated 3.9 million Americans, 
>were not able to vote because of a felony conviction. 1.4 million of 
>these are ex-offenders who have completed their sentences and are not in 
>prison or on probation or parole. 
>
>Losing the Vote is available on-line at 
>http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/.
>
>For more information, please see: 
>
>Felon Laws Bar 3.9 Million Americans from Voting (HRW Press Release, 
>October 22, 1998) at http://www.hrw.org/hrw/press98/oct/vote1022.htm
>
>US Election 2000 Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony 
>Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States (HRW Focus Page) 
>http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/elections/results.htm
>



-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
eLerts
It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
http://click.egroups.com/1/9699/2/_/794163/_/973735001/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->

To Post a message, send it to:   announce-dan@eGroups.com
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: announce-dan-unsubscribe@eGroups.com