Alabama: felon-voting bill draws opposition
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: Two bills currently in the state Legislature could clear up the decades-old debate about whether felons should be allowed to vote, but advocates for felons' voting rights say the bills would be worse than the existing law.
The Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, founder of The Ordinary People Society, which is based in Dothan, said the bills would roll back gains made under the current law that gives felons who haven't committed crimes of "moral turpitude" a chance to vote. Last year Glasgow, with the backing of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, sued the state Department of Corrections so he could provide voter registration information to incarcerated people who were eligible to vote. ...
The House Constitution and Election Committee advanced a bill during the second week of the session that would define moral turpitude and which crimes involve it.
The proposed bill would increase the number of crimes that involve moral turpitude from about 15 to more than 70 and revoke the voting rights of people who commit those crimes. The same committee also will decide the fate of a bill on Attorney General Troy King's agenda that would go even further than the moral turpitude bill, revoking the voting rights of anyone who commits a felony. -- Felons' voting rights back on agenda | montgomeryadvertiser.com | Montgomery Advertiser