Ex-Convict Brings Ballot Behind Bars in Orleans Parish, LA

New Orleans, LA, Times-Picayune ^ | 09-07-04 | Perlstein, Michael

[Theodore R.]

Ex-con brings ballot box behind bars Parish Prison drive signs up 700 voters Tuesday, September 07, 2004 By Michael Perlstein Staff writer

When Norris Henderson and his entourage walked into Orleans Parish Prison last month with a box of voter registration applications, the response from inmates was hardly welcoming.

"You trying to run some kind of game on us?"

"Everybody knows inmates can't vote."

"I ain't messing with that."

The wall of skepticism began crumbling when Henderson revealed that he, and most members of his group, were former prison inmates determined to unleash the power of a virtually forgotten voting bloc: people behind bars.

Henderson, who had studied the fine print of Louisiana's voting laws, explained that any inmates not serving time on felony convictions, and not on probation or parole, could vote. In Orleans Parish Prison, that amounts to a list of about 2,000 pretrial detainees and inmates locked up on misdemeanors.

Once Henderson got his message across, his group of 20 volunteers walked away with 700 completed applications, the most successful jailhouse voter-registration drive in modern New Orleans history, according to Louis Keller, Orleans Parish registrar of voters.

[Theodore R.]

Is this to benefit John Kerry primarily or Congressman Chris John, John Breaux's chosen heir for the U.S. Senate?

[Piquaboy]

This is for the benefit of all the Rats.

[Red Badger]

Birds of a feather......

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

While learning or resuming the responibilities of citizenship, which includes voting, is laudable, it is another troubling observation about the modern Democratic Party that felons, like the epithet-spewing thugs in NYC last week, vote almost exclusively Democratic.

One more case of politicians buying blocks of votes with promises of entitlements from taxpayer monies. "We're the Big Tent Party with something for everyone except individuals...just find yourself a Special Interest Group, learn their rhetoric, give us your votes and STAY IN YOUR PLACE!"

[Graybeard58]

about the modern Democratic Party that felons, like the epithet-spewing thugs in NYC last week, vote almost exclusively Democratic.

Do you have a source for that statement?