Arthur Sabree, a onetime cocaine dealer of considerable influence, has been out of prison for 10 years and done with parole for two. Mr. Sabree, 56, now sells T-shirts on the street. He serves as the captain of his neighborhood watch group. He owns a house with his wife of 10 years.
Yet while Mr. Sabree holds himself up as an example of good citizenship to the wayward of his community, he said, he cannot exercise the fundamental right of a citizen. As a convicted felon, Mr. Sabree is barred from voting for the rest of his life under Alabama law.
In this state, however, it is not a right for nearly a third of all black men because they have felony convictions, according to a recent study. Under the principle that those who violate the laws of society ought to surrender some of its privileges, Alabama, like eight other states, does not allow anyone with a felony conviction to vote; only a pardon from state officials restores voting rights.
Nationally, about 4.2 million Americans — some still behind bars, others freed long ago — cannot vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws, according to another study completed last month by two professors of criminology, Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Jeff Manza of Northwestern University. About 7 percent of African-Americans are barred from voting because of felony convictions, compared with 2.1 percent of the general population, the study found, using 1998 prison and parole figures.
In Florida earlier this month, a group of ex-felons filed a federal civil rights lawsuit charging that the state law excludes black voters and thus violates the Voting Rights Act. In Alabama earlier this year, legislators rejected a bill to automatically restore voting rights to ex-felons.
In Connecticut, civil rights groups have plastered a message on billboards informing ex-convicts that they can vote after completing parole or probation.
But in Massachusetts, which along with Vermont and Maine is the only state to let felons cast ballots behind bars, there is a move in the opposite direction. Voters there will consider on Election Day a ballot initiative to eliminate the practice.
A 1998 study conducted jointly by the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch found that 31 percent of African- American men in both Alabama and Florida could not vote. In five other states — Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia and Wyoming — felony disenfranchisement laws affected one in four black men.
A majority of states, including New York, automatically grant voting rights to felons once they have completed their prison and parole terms. Neither New Jersey nor Connecticut allows former felons on probation to vote. Some states impose limited voting restrictions on former felons, from waiting periods to bans for repeat offenders.
Where there is a lifetime ban, ex- felons who want to vote are required to undergo what critics contend is a bureaucratic process — one that they say is reminiscent of the poll taxes and literacy tests that once kept black Southerners from the ballot box. In Alabama, a pardon application requires a DNA test and notification to the crime victim.