Richard S. Davis: Vote not a tool for felon rehabilitation

By now we’ve all received our ballots for the Aug. 21 primary election. Grabbing voters’ attention in the dog days of summer isn’t easy. August is more about lakes, baseball and travel than it is about politics. Still, the earlier primary gives election officials additional time to prepare voter pamphlets and make sure military and overseas ballots are mailed in plenty of time for the November election. So the benefits justify the change.

Turnout may be light. Despite some hotly-contested local races, off-year primaries have a hard time catching fire.

But the summer has produced one burning political issue that’s likely to smolder well into the 2008 legislative session. It, however, has nothing to do with who’s on the ballot and everything to do with who’s permitted to cast a ballot.

At the end of July, our state Supreme Court ruled that felons must satisfy their “legal financial obligations” – court costs, fees and victim restitution – before they can have their voting rights restored. In this voter-friendly state, where you can register when you get your driver’s license, drop by a social service office, or encounter a clip-board toting activist on the street, the decision is controversial.

Although the divided court ruled that requiring full payment of these court-ordered obligations is constitutionally permitted, the justices invite the Legislature to reconsider the policy. “… [W]e emphasize that we are not making a judgment about whether the requirement … makes sense from a policy perspective,” they write in a footnote. They should not be so hesitant. Of course it makes policy sense.

The case, Madison v. State, attracted national attention and overwrought rhetoric. The plaintiffs’ supporters trivialize civil rights history to score cheap political points, calling the requirement a “modern-day poll tax”. The poll tax kept the innocent from voting. Our policy requires the guilty to earn back the right to vote. That means they must pay their debts to society. Literally.

The state constitution specifically provides that felons are not permitted to vote “unless restored to their civil rights.” The rules for restoration – what Justice James Johnson calls the “re-enfranchisement scheme” – are clear. Before regaining their right to vote, felons must pay their legal obligations, complete all other court imposed requirements (treatment, community service), and serve their time, including probation and community service.

Critics – including Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, who rehearses the “poll tax” canard – say that this requirement unfairly penalizes the poor. While poor felons will have a more difficult time making financial restitution than will the wealthy, it isn’t their poverty that has cost them their voting rights. It’s their criminal conduct.

A 2001 report by the state Department of Corrections estimated there were about 46,500 felons who have complied with all conditions of their sentence except their financial obligations. Undoubtedly, the number includes thousands like the three Madison plaintiffs, each of whom lives on disability and Social Security checks and is unlikely ever to satisfy court-imposed financial obligations ranging, initially, from $610 to $1,610. Accrued interest adds to the debt. They’ve met all other terms of their sentence. Their crimes: third-degree assault, forgery and the manufacture and distribution of marijuana.

To some, the loss of voting rights in such cases may seem excessive. Liberal legislators will surely be tempted to lift the restriction in 2008, perhaps accepting the argument that allowing felons to vote accelerates their rehabilitation. I’m not persuaded. If there’s an adjustment to be made, let the courts consider the facts on a case-by-case basis and reduce, modify, or forgive debt as appropriate.

But there is no justification for a sweeping change in the voting rules or the sudden enfranchisement of unknown thousands of felons who have not met their financial obligations. We have a legitimate interest in protecting the integrity of the electoral system.

Convicted felons should not be allowed to vote before they have satisfied their debt to their victims and society, a debt that includes time, money and freedom. Meeting those obligations is not an inconsequential matter.

Current state policy is appropriate and just, not a nuisance to be swept away cavalierly in some misguided attempt to use the voting right as a therapeutic tool. That’s backward: First, rehabilitation; then, restoration.