Americas Disenfranchised

Download or read book America's Disenfranchised written by Desmond Meade and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lawrence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal, presented by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world. Voting is foundational in a democracy, yet over six million American citizens remain stripped of their ability to participate in elections. Once convicted of a felony, people who complete their sentences reenter society, but no longer with the civil rights they once had. They may return to school, secure employment to provide for their families, and become law-abiding, tax-paying citizens—sometimes for decades—and still be denied the voting rights afforded to every other citizen. Desmond Meade, director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and a returning citizen himself, played an instrumental role in the landslide 2018 Amendment 4 victory in Florida, which used the ballot box to restore voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians with a previous felony conviction. Meade argues how, state by state, America can do better. His efforts in Florida present a compelling argument that creating access to democracy for those living on the fringes of society will create a more vibrant and robust democracy for all. He is the winner of the 2021 Brown Democracy Medal for his continuing work to restore voting rights and connect Americans along shared social values.

Download or read book The Politics of Disenfranchisement written by Richard K. Scher and published by M.E. Sharpe. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We think of our American democracy as being a model for the world--and it has been. But today it compares unfavorably in some respects, especially when it comes to the universal franchise. The right to vote is more conditional and less exercised in the United States than in many other mature democracies. As became clear to all in the presidential election of 2000, when the stakes are high, efforts to define voter eligibility and manage the voting and vote-counting process to the advantage of one's own side are part of hard-ball politics. It is that experience that gave rise to this book. Written by an author with wide expertise on Southern and Florida politics and districting, the book begins with a deceptively simple question--why is it so hard to vote in America? It proceeds, in seven chapters, to examine the ways that some people are formally or effectively disenfranchised, and to review how control of the ballot and the voting process is constrained, manipulated, and contested. The author goes beyond the questions of how and how much this happens to explore why it is the case--and why so many of us ignore, or even approve, the imperfection in our democratic system.

Download or read book Locked Out written by Jeff Manza and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mr. Manza and Mr. Uggen... wade into one of the most contested empirical debates in political science: How many (if any) recent American elections would have gone differently if all former felons had been allowed to vote?"--The Chronicle of Higher Education. Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen, who understand the vastness of the jailers' reach, follow the story out of the cell and into the voting booth. Locked Out examines how the disenfranchisement of felons shapes American democracyhardly a hypothetical matter in an age of split electorates and hanging chads.... Exacting and fair, their work should persuade even those who come to the subject skeptically that an injustice is at hand.The New York Review of Books. 5.4 million Americans--1 in every 40 voting age adultsare denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement--for election outcomes, for the reintegration of former offenders back into their communities, and for public policy more generally? Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors' path-breaking analysis will inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals.

Download or read book One Person, No Vote written by Carol Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As featured in the documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: Washington Post * Boston Globe * NPR* Bustle * BookRiot * New York Public Library From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, the startling--and timely--history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin. In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.

Download or read book The Fight to Vote written by Michael Waldman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover, the word "right" has an x drawn over the letter "r" with the letter "f" above it.

Download or read book Uncounted written by Gilda R. Daniels and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An answer to the assault on voting rights—crucial reading in light of the 2024 presidential election The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is considered one of the most effective pieces of legislation the United States has ever passed. It enfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters, particularly in the American South, and drew attention to the problem of voter suppression. Yet in recent years there has been a continuous assault on access to the ballot box in the form of stricter voter ID requirements, meritless claims of rigged elections, and baseless accusations of voter fraud. In the past these efforts were aimed at eliminating African American voters from the rolls, and today, new laws seek to eliminate voters of color, the poor, and the elderly, groups that historically vote for the Democratic Party. Uncounted examines the phenomenon of disenfranchisement through the lens of history, race, law, and the democratic process. Gilda R. Daniels, who served as Deputy Chief in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and has more than two decades of voting rights experience, argues that voter suppression works in cycles, constantly adapting and finding new ways to hinder access for an exponentially growing minority population. She warns that a premeditated strategy of restrictive laws and deceptive practices has taken root and is eroding the very basis of American democracy—the right to vote!

Download or read book Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America's Disenfranchised Students written by Terry Lee Marzell and published by Wheatmark, Inc.. This book was released on 2012 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: