The Ex-Felon Vote

Adam Serwer looks at voter disenfrancisement. He notes that Florida's GOP is "prepared to roll back former Gov. Charlie Crist's efforts to re-enfranchise ex-felons." A disproportionate number of former prisoners are African-American, a demographic group that votes strongly for Democrats:

The obvious historical irony is that Reconstruction-era felony disenfranchisement laws were once passed by Democrats to disenfranchise blacks because they voted Republican. Now, Republicans support such laws because they make it more difficult for Democratic-leaning constituencies to cast ballots. To say that such laws are motivated by partisanship rather than racism doesn't really redeem them all that much.

2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan