Ira Glasser has a terrific article in the July 10 issue of the Nation (Download drugs_and_jim_crow.pdf). After describing the racist application of drug laws combined with the denial of the right to vote to convicted felons, Glasser notes the likely differences in outcomes in various elections: of course, Gore would have won in Florida. But, John Tower and John Warner would probably have never made it to the Senate. Twisting the knife he just stuck in, Glasser writes:
The kicker for all this is that all these black citizens who were disproportionately targeted for arrest and incarceration and then barred from voting are nonetheless counted as citizens for the purposes of determining how many Congressional seats and how many electoral votes states have. During slavery, three fifths the number of slaves were similarly counted by the slave states, even though slaves were not in any way members of the civil polity.This is worse. In the states of the Deep South, thirty percent of all black men are barred from voting because of felony convictions, but all of them are counted to determine Congressional representation and Electoral College votes. If one wants to wonder why the South is so solidly white, Republican, and arch-conservative, one need look no further.
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