Alabama Law: Barred from voting for life for pot sale conviction

The American Civil Liberties Union sued Alabama elections officials Monday over what it says is an overly expansive policy disenfranchising felons, amid concern from voting rights groups nationwide that voting lists are being culled with too great alacrity by many states.

Like virtually all states, Alabama restricts the rights of many felons to vote, but in Monday's suit the group contends the state is going beyond even its own laws. People convicted of nonviolent offenses like income tax evasion or forgery are at risk of being turned away by voter registrars in Alabama, the A.C.L.U. says.

Alabama does not bar all felons from voting, only those convicted of crimes involving "moral turpitude." In 2003, the civil liberties group says, the State Legislature clearly defined what those crimes are: murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, incest, sexual torture and nine other crimes mainly involving pornography and abuses against children.

At issue in the lawsuit is not the list enacted in law but an expanded "moral turpitude" list developed by the state's attorney general, Troy King, in 2005. That list includes about a dozen additional offenses, most of them nonviolent, and several including the sale of marijuana.

The A.C.L.U. contends that the attorney general's list violates the Alabama Constitution, saying only the Legislature can decide what crimes fit the "moral turpitude" category. Georgia, by contrast, bars those convicted of moral turpitude from voting but promulgates no list of crimes fitting that definition. A.C.L.U. officials say that results in a "blanket" policy of disenfranchisement.

Across the nation, about 5.3 million people cannot vote because of their convictions, according to a 2004 estimate by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research group supporting more liberal sentencing and voting policies. Voting rights groups are especially watchful this year because under a 2002 federal law, states are now coordinating lists to find felons and people who have died or moved, allowing easy -- rights groups say too easy -- purging of voters.

Thanks to Matt Welch, Reason Hit and run