"Under a process set up by former governor Mark R. Warner (D) , felons convicted of nonviolent crimes can apply to have their voting rights restored if they have a clean record for three years after their sentence has been completed. People convicted of violent felonies, which in Virginia includes selling drugs, have to wait five years."
^^This just shows that the current push to restore felon voting rights is nothing but a political ploy. They are worried about Ooooooobama. Funny, I was reading my hometown newspaper and they are doing the same thing there. Here's a snippet from what I read:
"Black voters are disproportionately affected by disenfranchisement policies," said Marc Mauer, executive director of the national organization the Sentencing Project. "The racial disproportions in the criminal justice system translate into higher rates of disenfranchisement for African-Americans.
"But black communities as a whole are affected by these policies since they have relatively fewer voters than other communities, and therefore their community interests receive less representation."
Mauer said even though some 5 million people are disenfranchised in the United States because they are felons, it's hard to say how that affects voting. Regardless, Mauer said their vote loss is not fair.
"It's difficult to say how elections would be affected if these felons were allowed to vote because we can't necessarily predict how many would vote and who they would vote for.
"But we believe this issue should be decided on the basis of principle, not voting patterns. That is similar to women and African-Americans gaining the right to vote, it was the right thing to do regardless of voting patterns," Mauer said.
When asked about his favorite candidate in this year's presidential race, 31-year-old Steven Hubbard didn't hesitate to say, "Obama's my man."
