The Oregonian

Loose chads won't pervert tax election

01/13/04

ROBERT LANDAUER

Unlike the 2000 presidential voting, Oregon's tax election next month will be free of two factors that could deliver below-the-belt blows to fair results.

With the Feb. 3 election, the punch-card ballot is no more in Oregon, says John Lindback, director of the state's Elections Division.

Washington, Clackamas and Lane are the last three counties making the switch to more modern systems. This removes about one-third of Oregon voters from hanging-chads disputes that, as Florida showed four years ago, can rise to constitutional crisis.

That contest ended when a winning margin of 537 popular votes delivered all of Florida's decisive 25 Electoral College votes to George Bush.

Oregon also has dodged another Florida franchise fracas -- a civil-rights controversy over who can vote.

Disputed ballots and other alleged irregularities in Florida's 2000 election seemed to concentrate in precincts where African Americans were the largest racial group. Historically, these precincts delivered majorities for Democrats. Many Americans are still disturbed that large numbers of these Florida ballots were disqualified. But many Americans were more shocked to learn that up to 600,000 citizens in Florida, disproportionately from communities of color, were barred from voting because of felony convictions.

That issue still is in play in the courts. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing a district judge's dismissal of a case, last month ordered a trial for former felons in Florida seeking to restore their civil rights. The appeals court said there was evidence that the state's disenfranchisement law discriminated against blacks when it was enacted and that equal-protection discrimination may persist to this day.

Because of felony disenfranchisement statutes, about 4.7 million Americans cannot vote, according to the Advancement Project, a nonpartisan racial-justice, legal and policy action group. But Oregon doesn't march with the seven states (Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Wyoming) that never restore voting rights to ex-felons.

Oregon law -- ORS 137.281 -- says that persons convicted of a felony and imprisoned may not vote while in custody of the Department of Corrections. If you are on parole but not in a prison, you are allowed to vote.

If you are registered to vote, then convicted and imprisoned, your name is not removed from the rolls for that reason. It could be removed for inactivity under federal motor-voter laws, but that takes several years, and there is no bar to reregistration when the inmate is out of confinement.

In short, your criminal history in Oregon is relevant to your voting rights only while you are confined.

Felony convictions produce other publicly prescribed collateral consequences that sometimes are irrational and counterproductive.

Anyone ever convicted of a felony drug crime should be barred for life from receiving food stamps or welfare benefits, Congress said in 1996. Oregon is one of the 11 states that sensibly opted out of the total ban, which often pushes children needlessly into the foster-care system. Congress also suspended student-loan eligibility for anyone convicted of a drug crime -- a counterproductive act (with racial and class overtones) if society hopes to rehabilitate offenders.

Every state has prohibitions, often bizarre, that bar people convicted of felonies from certain jobs, including barber, gardener or health-care worker, says Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project (www.sentencingproject.org).

Oregon, too, has a crazy-quilt of job-entry restrictions for ex-offenders. We surely don't want a convicted embezzler handling stock portfolios or insurance premiums. But what if an offense occurred years ago, was unrelated to the trade the individual wants to practice and there is a post-conviction record of unflawed behavior?

Oregon needs to look at all these scattered barriers, see which make sense and which are irrational and determine where waiver processes should allow case-by-case good reason to overcome overly rigid rules.

Reach Robert Landauer, editorial columnist, at 503-221-8157, or 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 or robertlandauer@news.oregonian.com