If you think I was wrong...

My prior post explained how in a older, but now removed web page of the Soros group discussed using felons to vote to increase chances of Obama winning the Presidential election. Well, here is a story which broke after my post.

Here you go. Someone is pushing this agenda. I hope they fail.

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Washington Post
Groups Push to Restore Va. Felons' Voting Rights

By Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 17, 2008; B01

RICHMOND -- Civic and social organizations are teaming with Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to try to add thousands of nonviolent offenders to the voting rolls in time for the November election, a move that has angered Republicans who say the effort is designed to help Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Under Virginia's constitution, people convicted of a felony automatically lose their right to vote for life, which has resulted in an estimated 300,000 residents being disenfranchised, even though they are not in prison.

But a Virginia governor can restore a felon's voting rights. Under a process set up by former governor Mark R. Warner (D) , felons convicted of nonviolent crimes can apply to have their voting rights restored if they have a clean record for three years after their sentence has been completed. People convicted of violent felonies, which in Virginia includes selling drugs, have to wait five years.

Earlier this year, Kaine (D) promised that his administration would expedite a review of applications from nonviolent felons who submit their papers by Aug. 1.

The former inmates would be able to register in time to vote in the November presidential contest between Obama (Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive GOP nominee. The felons also would get their rights back to sit on a jury and hold public office.

"The whole name of the game is once they get out and once they serve their time and they have demonstrated they want to get into mainstream society and be good citizens, it's just fundamental to that, they have their civil rights restored," said Bernard Henderson, deputy secretary of the commonwealth, whose office is charged with processing the applications.

Only Virginia and Kentucky require an act of the governor to restore voting rights to felons. The vast majority of states, including Maryland, automatically restore voting rights after a sentence is completed. The District allows felons to vote upon release from prison. Maine and Vermont even allow felons to vote from jail.

The Kaine administration's efforts come as a coalition of groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, have launched an ambitious drive to get convicted felons information on how they can apply to have their voting rights restored.

The groups have taken out newspaper ads, spread the word through churches and gone door to door, urging felons to apply to Kaine.

"A lot of felons operate under the miscomprehension that loss of their voting rights is permanent, so what we are doing, is saying, 'No, no, no, there is a way,' " said Gwinnett Hagens, executive director of Democracy South, a Virginia Beach social justice organization that is reaching out to tens of thousands of unregistered voters in Hampton Roads.

Henderson isn't sure how many applications to expect but said, "It is going to be a challenge for us if we get absolutely swamped, but we will divert staff to do this."

Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia branch of the ACLU, and other activists say the campaign to register more felons is a civil rights issue, not a political one.

"Virginia's situation is extremely punitive, and we are working within the system to get as many folks as possible their rights restored," said Adisa Muse, director of the Virginia Voter Restoration Project.

Although they don't dispute Kaine's authority to grant pardons and clemency to criminals, some GOP legislators are skeptical of the efforts this year to get felons onto the voting rolls.

"I don' t know a lot of young Republicans who end up being felons," said Del. C. Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah). "Clearly the groups that are soliciting these felons to get their rights restored are predisposed to be in support of Obama, and I am sure this registration effort is designed to help their candidate."

The effort comes as Obama, who views Virginia as a key battleground state this fall, is trying to register tens of thousands of new voters in the state this summer.

Some political strategists say former inmates are the largest block of unregistered voters over age 18 in Virginia. The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group that supports criminal justice reform, estimates that 20 percent of Virginia's black population is ineligible to vote because they are in prison or have a past felony conviction.

Amy Brundage, an Obama spokeswoman, said there is "no organized effort to target ex-offenders" in Virginia. But some Obama workers are providing information to felons about how they can get their rights restored.

"If you are in areas where there are large numbers of unregistered voters, one of the reasons you see that is they are ineligible because of felony convictions," said Kristin Szakos, co-chairman of Charlottesville Area Obama Volunteers, adding that canvassers carry "restoration of rights" forms.

Kaine, one of Obama's national co-chairmen, maintains that his decision to quickly process the applications this year has nothing to do with the presidential election.

"We follow the same basic protocol for nonviolent individuals who have been finished with whatever their sentence," said Kaine, noting that Warner restored voting rights for about 3,500 nonviolent offenders when he was governor.

Del. William R. Janis (R-Goochland) said he thinks the "election is clouding every decision the governor is making."

"There shouldn't be a wholesale, automatic restoration of voting rights to a class of felons for the sole purpose of swelling the voting rolls prior to the November elections," Janis said.

But Henderson, who said he is so far receiving only about 35 applications each week, notes that many of the applications come from felons seeking to have their gun rights restored. A court, not the governor, has to restore that right, but many judges want felons to first get their voting rights back.

Gun owners are considered a vital part of the GOP base in Virginia.
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So, if you thought I was mining for BS to post, here is proof I was just reporting what I had found.

Be afraid people, be very afraid.

Intent and Actions

Earned Loss of Rights and Liberty

I am a firm believer that we all know ourselves and decide to undertake certain actions, or said another way, we decide how we are going to live everyday. I know I am not going to commit a crime when I wake up, as also I know I am not going to commit a crime in the future. How can I say this? Easily.

I may not have what you have, but I also do not want it. OK, there is theft, and I am not tempted. I have personally held and had over $20,000.00 in my hands, and I knew who it belonged to, and who it was from. Never did I fail in protecting my friends interest, nor the involved parties.

I may dislike you, but unless you attack me and I fear my or my families safety, you are safe around me. I know this as fact in my life. I will defend myself and those around me. I have taken oaths my entire life to do for the good of all through treating each other right. You do need to fear me if you break our laws. I, as well as most others will call the police, or deal with you. This is fair, as well as protected under the law. As long as I do not violate your rights, I am fine.

I also will never betray my country or its people, and hate anyone who would.

Why am I saying this? Because, some in our nation wake up with the intent on hurting you, robbing you, betraying you, and with no regard for anyone but themselves. Those who are deemed as one of these unwanted, untrusted people have shown they cannot handle our world.

In courts they are labeled felons. Felon is a label which is earned. You do not just become one, nor are you suddenly made one. It is a label only by ones actions does one deserve to wear it.

So, part of our punishment for those deemed felons is the revocation of the right to vote. This is only fair. Now, think honestly, do you want every criminal that is a felon to decide your future? They already did something so bad that the courts sent them to prison, and stripped them from that point forth of many of the rights you and I enjoy every day. These are good things for all of us whom do not want to be a victim to their disregard for our own rights.

I support this. Hell, it should scare the hell out of anyone who cares about those around them if the idea a rapist could go buy a gun without any checks. Imagine your true and worthy fear, and then empower these people to do to you what they please. Would you be safe? How about your loved ones and friends.

So, there are people who want to restore these and other rights to felons. I see them as either naive or with perhaps ill will to those of us enjoying our lives as we live them. You decide. Vocal supporters of many democrat presidential candidates, Soros had the following to say. This is from a cashed file online posted originally by Open Society Institute.

Page Link
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:UOjpCDYcQCcJ:www.soros.org/initiatives/justice/events/disenfranchise_20060620/summary+How+many+felons+in+US&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
Copied on June 17th, 2008 from the above link. No items were changed.

The following is a summary of the forum "Felon Disenfranchisement: Costs and Consequences," held at the Open Society Institute's New York office on June 20, 2006.

Moderator Kirsten Levingston, director of the Criminal Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, began by noting the following statistics:

• 
  5.3 million people in the United States are denied the right to vote because of felony conviction.
• 
  Nearly 600,000 veterans are denied the right to vote.
  
• Thirteen percent of African American men cannot vote due to a felony conviction.
  
• Eighty percent of those polled in a national survery supported restoring voting rights for people who have completed a felony sentence.
  
• Five states still permanently disenfranchise people who have been convicted of a felony unless the government approves restoring an individual's right.
  

Levingston asked author Sasha Abramsky how he became interested in the topic of his book, CONNED: How Millions Went to Prison, Lost the Vote and Helped Send George W. Bush to the White House (The New Press). Forty or fifty years ago, Abramsky said, felon disenfranchisement wasn't a big practical question; there simply weren't that many people in prison. Today, over two million people are incarcerated in the United States, while approximately seven million are involved in the criminal justice system at any one time. What happens, he wondered, when you remove that many people from the voting process? What does it mean when you have very close election victories by conservative candidates?

Levingston then asked Jeff Manza, co-author of the book Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Society (Oxford University Press), about the practical implications of felon disenfranchisement. Using Department of Justice demographic information, Manza said, he was able to estimate how many felons would have voted and how they would have voted. Evidence indicated that in a number of close races, the Republican winner might well have lost had all citizens been allowed to vote.

Monifa Bandele, field director of the Right to Vote Campaign, discussed how felon disenfranchisement has affected people in the communities she works with. Bandele has observed three levels of impact:

• 
  the family: if heads of households vote, their children and other relatives are more likely to vote;
  
• the community: these groups are bypassed by politicians if residents don't or can't vote;
  
• the macro-level: if millions of people are blocked from voting, their demographic becomes less important politically.

Joseph "Jazz" Hayden remarked on the status of his lawsuit, Hayden v. Pataki, and what motivated him to file it. Only Maine and Vermont allow prisoners to vote, Hayden said, but "since we are all citizens of the United States, once you commit a crime you do not cease to be a citizen." The contradiction was so glaring, he said, it had to be addressed. In 2000, he filed a class-action lawsuit on grounds that the Voting Rights Act is being violated and that this in turn dilutes and weakens the community vote.

After 11 months, the lawsuit had a hearing. The court decided against the prisoners' claims. Lawyers are considering whether to go to the Supreme Court, but this is unlikely given the present conservative slant of that body, Hayden said.

Levingston asked Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, about the impact of disenfranchisement at the jail level, where people haven't been convicted of a crime. Mauer stated that there are approximetely 700,000 inmates around the country who haven't yet had a trial, or who were convicted of a misdemeanor. They are eligible to vote but likely will not, Mauer said. They are unaware they have the right, and prison staff are unlikely to make arrangements for them to vote.

Abramsky addressed the perception that formerly incarcerated people are not interested in getting the right to vote. Conservatives are often adamant, he said, that felons do not want to vote. As part of his research Abramsky spoke with convicted felons, most of whom expressed a desire to vote. While conservatives claim that this population, if allowed to vote, would form large criminal voting blocks, Abramsky said that what they really want is to have a say in policies that affect them, such as those regarding schools, tax policies, and war.

Manza polled Americans about whether they thought people with felony convictions should be allowed to vote. He found two trends in public opinion. Over the last 40 years Americans have shown increased willingness to punish criminal offenders more harshly. Yet Americans have become much more supportive of civil rights and civil liberties for all groups, including unpopular ones. Manza's study found that Americans support restoring the right to vote for everyone except for current prison inmates (only about a third support this).

Levingston asked Hayden about his comparison of the felon disenfranchisement issue with "Juneteenth," referring to the disconnect between abolition and the prolonged practice of slavery in some parts of the country. Just as slaves were not made aware that they were free long after emancipation, one of the biggest obstacles to restoring people's right to vote is that they are unaware of the laws or of the process required to restore voting rights. There are possibly millions in the country who are eligible to vote but do not excercise that right because they have not been notified, Hayden said.

Mauer addressed the international implications of the issue. As with the death penalty, the United States is by far the exception with regard to the practices of the rest of industrialized world, he said. But Mauer pointed to a few encouraging developments: for example, a group of organizations has called on the UN Human Rights Committee to confront the United States regarding felon disenfranchisement.

Some encouraging news has emerged in the United States, Bandele said, citing three areas:
Litigation: several lawsuits have challenged states' laws that prevent people from voting.
Push for policy change: public education is increasing awareness so that the public will put pressure on elected officials to change the laws.

Compliance: 5.3 million people are legally disenfranchised; that number doubles when we talk about noncompliance in states where people are allowed to vote but essentially prevented from doing so because they are asked to present nonexistent documents, or are incorrectly told they do not have the right, or where there is widespread ignorance of the laws even among elections administrators. For example, Bandele noted developments in New York State. Systematically, she said, election boards were not providing correct information regarding voting rights. This has been corrected through better education and information.

Levingston asked Abramsky how those in power have reacted to the ease with which people lose the right to vote. In some states there is a good-faith effort to get people to vote when they've finished their sentences, he said. In others, "there is absolutely no momentum toward reenfranchisement." For example, Mississippi has a very efficient disenfranchisement process, Abramsky said. When convicted of a qualified felony (not all felonies result in disenfranchisement), the individual is immediately removed from the voter rolls. Mississippi claims to have a reenfranchisement process, which is as follows: An individual must go to his or her state representative and convince them to personally author a bill reenfranchising that individual. Both houses of the legislature must then be convinced to pass the bill, and the governor has to sign it. This means that every year, only 10 to 12 people have been reenfranchised in Mississippi, while at the same time thousands are being disenfranchised.
In states like this there is a "secondary disenfranchisement": there is no reenfranchisement process comparable to the massive disenfranchisement efforts. Even though in theory people can vote, Abramsky said, in practice it is a diminution of their voting rights.

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Why would an article like this be removed from your site if you believed in it enough to post it, and not only post it but offer Multimedia links to it originally? This was not something which accidentally ended up on line.

The next question would be why is it gone? You decide.

Felons do not deserve the right to vote, no more than they deserve the right to own guns. This was lost. Not only lost, but willfully given away one day when they awoke and decided to go and commit a crime. Which crime was it? Murder, Rape, or something worse?

Think about that.