Report: R.I.’s voting laws concerning felons are among country’s strictest

Joel Furfari Pawtucket Times  24 September 2004

PROVIDENCE Rhode Island’s laws prohibiting convicted felons from voting are the most restrictive in New England, and felon disenfranchisement is particularly notable in the state’s urban areas, according to a new report issued this week.

The study, called "Political Punishment," was conducted by the Providence-based non-profit Family Life Center an organization aimed at helping ex-offenders return to their communities.

Sol Rodriguez, the center’s executive director, said in a statement that the report shows how Rhode Island’s voting laws have left more than 15,500 people without the right to cast ballots.

"Due to the racial and geographic disparities produced by Rhode Island’s voting laws, disenfranchisement dramatically diminishes the political power of black and Latino communities," Rodriguez stated. "With this loss, residents without a criminal conviction suffer some of the same punishments as felons themselves."

The laws vary by state, but Rhode Island’s voting rights laws for felons are fairly strict.

According to the center, anyone convicted of a felony and still in prison, on parole or on probation is barred from voting.

Among the disenfranchised felons, 86 percent of those unable to vote are out of prison.

According to the report, disenfranchisement laws mean that now one in five black men and one in 11 Hispanic men in Rhode Island can’t vote.

Disenfranchisement rates in Providence, Pawtucket and other urban area are 3.5 times higher than the rest of the state, the study found.

After the 2000 presidential election, Florida’s strict felon disenfranchisement laws were scrutinized when thousands of African-American voters said their names were mistakenly purged from the voting rolls.

In other election news, state officials announced this week that Pawtucket, Woonsocket and Warwick will use a new voter registration listing system for the first time during the Nov. 2 general election.

The new lists were developed using computer mapping technology. The overhaul of voting lists was required by federal law after the dispute over presidential election results in 2000 in Florida.

The new lists were also used for the primary elections last week in Cranston, Scituate, Exeter, and Westerly. Smithfield was also to be a test community, but had no primaries.

Secretary of State Matt Brown said the test communities found the lists worked well, despite concerns that there would be confusion since the new lists placed some voters in new wards, districts and even municipalities.

Brown and the board have also decided to revise provisional ballots that caused problems in the Cranston primaries last week. The ballots were being used for the first time.

Voters mistakenly placed the provisional ballots in voting machines, which accepted them because they were similar to the regular ballots. They will be revamped with new colors and computer coding that will cause the voting machines to reject them.