felon disenfranchisement

[Doug Henwood]

Just got a copy of the premier issue of Legal Affairs, "the magazine 
at the intersection of law and life" <http://www.legalaffairs.org>. 
It has a page on the political consequences of felon 
disenfranchisement in the U.S. - 48 states restrict the voting rights 
of convicted felons (40 prohibit voting by inmates, 8 more strip 
ex-cons of voting rights for life). Florida banned 887,812 from 
voting; had they been allowed to vote, the magazine estimates that 
Gore would have carried the state by 93,429, instead of "losing" by 
537. It also estimates, drawing on a paper by Jeff Manza and 
Christopher Uggen <ttp://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/>, that were felons 
allowed to vote in national elections, the Senate wouldn't have gone 
Republican, and would be 55:45 D:R today.

Doug