Associated Press: Alabama lawsuit challenges felon voting rights ban
“Today we begin the journey on behalf of a quarter million Alabama citizens who have felony convictions and who have been disenfranchised by this system. Citizens with past felony convictions work and pay taxes, and should have a say in deciding their community’s and the nation’s laws that directly impact their lives,” said Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based group that’s providing lawyers for the suit.
“You do your time, you pay your debt to society, so you ought to be able to return back home and your society and be able to speak freely law and vote freely,” Larry Newby, 60, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement issued through the Campaign Legal Center. Newby has past convictions for theft.