Ruling Provides New Hope for Felon Voting Rights | Black Agenda Report

Ruling Provides New Hope for Felon Voting Rights

03 Feb 2010

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an MP3 copy.

In what is being hailed as a landmark ruling, a federal court found that the criminal justice system is “infected” with racial discrimination. As a result, said the judges, disenfranchisement of felons is a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Ruling Provides New Hope for Felon Voting Rights

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“The criminal justice system is 'infected' with racial discrimination.”

Mass Black incarceration touches every aspect of African American life – economic, cultural and political. The pervasive impact of the Black American Gulag is made even more devastating and intractable because its effects weaken Black people’s ability to change the system through electoral politics. 5.3 million U.S. citizens are barred from voting because of felony convictions – two million, or 38 percent, are Black.

Court rulings in cases challenging felon disenfranchisement have been all over the map. But last month, in a case from the state of Washington, a federal court decided that the hugely disproportionate effect of felony convictions on Black people’s voting rights amounts to a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The case is being appealed, and is very likely to wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the state of Washington, 24 percent of Black men and 15 percent of African Americans overall are ineligible to vote because of felony convictions. Since Black mass incarceration has been a fact of life everywhere in the U.S. for two generations, the facts and principles of the Washington case apply to every state in the nation.

The federal court, in a two-to-one ruling, declared that there was “compelling evidence” that minorities are “more likely to be searched, arrested, detained, and ultimately prosecuted” than whites. In the courts words: “If those decision points are infected with racial bias, resulting in some people becoming felons not just because they have committed a crime, but because of their race, then that felon status cannot, under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, disqualify felons from voting.”

In other words, since the criminal justice system's behavior, at every stage of its interaction with Black people – from the stop on the street to the trail in the courtroom – is more likely to result in a felony conviction for Blacks, that racially biased system violates Black voting rights.

“The Voting Rights Act recognized that many discriminatory factors can combine to prevent effective exercise of one's rights.”

The court's conclusion flows from the reasoning of the Voting Rights Act, itself. In attempting to outlaw racist Jim Crow voting restrictions, the Congress took into account the wide range of racial practices that had prevented Blacks from exercising their voting rights, including poll taxes, literacy laws, and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act recognized that many discriminatory factors can combine to prevent effective exercise of one's rights. The federal court agreed that race was the reason that “minorities are disproportionately prosecuted and sentenced, resulting in their disproportionate representation among the persons disenfranchised....”

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund hailed the ruling, for acknowledging that the criminal justice system is “infected” with racial discrimination. That is an understatement. Mass Black incarceration has replaced Jim Crow as the principal American mechanism to subordinate and control Black people. Finally, a federal court has recognized that the racist infection has also vitiated the right to vote.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

More Stories

Stevie Wilson
When I Heard of the Passing of Johanna Fernandez
04 Aug 2026
Johanna Fernandez touched many lives through her scholarship, activism, and belief that people themselves can change history and be "the ones we've been waiting for."
Craig Mokhiber
No, Israel does not have ‘a right to exist.’ Quite the contrary, actually.
04 Aug 2026
"Unlike the Zionist claim that 'Israel has a right to exist,' my assertion is rooted in international law. Of course, given Israel’s propensity for violating such laws, it’s no surprise they’re still…
Black Alliance For Peace
In Unwavering Solidarity with the African and Anti-Colonial Struggle: A Call for Unified Action Among the U.S. Left
04 Aug 2026
The recent report by the U.S. fascist state attacking Cuba and its allies serves as a glaring call for urgent and strategic unity among the broadest sectors of the U.S. left, and all people of…
John Perry
Nicaragua Banned US-Backed Coup Leaders From Elections, and Corporate Media Lost It
04 Aug 2026
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega stated that when the country's next elections take place, none who promoted a violent anti-government insurrection in 2018 will be allowed to stand for office.…
Gary Wilson
They came to Spain for work. Washington called it an invasion.
04 Aug 2026
"Israel and Washington use Ceuta and Melilla to attack Spain for naming the genocide in Gaza. The enclaves are colonial relics. But the powers now raising the issue have no concern for African or…