Think Progress: Alabama Elections Chief Calls Losing the Right to Vote a ‘Minor Disability’

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In a legal filing over Alabama’s policy of permanently banning people with certain felony convictions from voting, the state’s elections chief claimed that disenfranchisement is “only a minor disability.”

The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based voting group, claimed in a lawsuit it filed in 2016 that Alabama’s felon disenfranchisement law, which blocks roughly 15 percent of Alabama’s black population from voting, is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional. In a motion to dismiss last month, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) argued that the law is neither punitive nor criminal.

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In a reply brief, the Campaign Legal Center questioned the argument, claiming “the right to vote is the most important right of citizenship.”

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The Campaign Legal Center estimates that because of the law, tens of thousands of ex-felons were able to register and vote for the first time during the December 2017 special Senate election.

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The Campaign Legal Center’s lawsuit over Alabama’s felon disenfranchisement law — which is scheduled to go to trial in May 2019 — claims that the policy is racially discriminatory, cruel and unusual punishment, and a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

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