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Posted on 10/11/2004 10:05:31 PM PDT by fortress
Project Voice volunteers cite an Elections Division ruling, but a Republican Party leader complains
Brian Schaefer always believed the rumor he'd heard in jail, the one that said inmates, including felons, aren't eligible to vote.
After all, as an inmate, Schaefer's civil rights are pretty limited. He can only shower at certain times, gets just an hour a week for visitors and has to go to bed when he's told.
But on Friday, at Multnomah County's Inverness Jail, an inmate outreach group dispelled the jailhouse rumors about voting, prompting the 37-year-old Schaefer to register for the first time.
Schaefer, serving time for a probation violation on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of intoxicants, is one of hundreds of inmates who has signed up recently in Multnomah and Marion counties as part of a registration drive sponsored by the Western Prison Project.
The drive has left Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto, a Democrat, prepared for complaints from the public. It's also drawn the ire of the Oregon Republican Party.
For Schaefer, it has provided a chance he didn't think he had.
"I wanted to voice my opinion," he said. "And what a perfect opportunity to do it. Plus, being clean and sober in here, my judgment is pretty clear."
The inmate registration drive is part of a wider voting rights effort by the Western Prison Project, a 5-year-old Portland-based group that works with crime victims, inmates and the families of both in seven western states.
The Voice Project, as the effort is known, started in 2002 and focused on educating felons about their voting rights, according to Brigette Sarabi, the group's founder. Many felons, she said, assume they aren't allowed to vote.
"We talked with people who had been out for 25 years and they still thought they had permanently lost the right to vote," she said.
Sarabi's group widened its effort this year after John Lindback, director of the state's Elections Division, sent a memo to officials in every county saying that Oregon law allows inmates to vote, including some felons.
Voting rights for felons vary from state to state. According to Lindback's memo, Article II, Section 3 of the Oregon Constitution says that convicts forfeit their right to vote. But Oregon law, he said, interprets the constitution to mean that a person convicted of a felony retains the right to vote unless lodged in a state prison.
Thus, county inmates, including pretrial detainees, people convicted of misdemeanors and felons, can vote, according to Lindback. But inmates in state prisons, or those who are being held in a county jail under Department of Corrections custody, are not eligible, he said. Felons who have been released from county jails and state or federal prisons can vote.
Jim Edmunson, chairman of the Democratic Party of Oregon, said he doubts that registering inmates will have much effect on the results of the November election. He said he has no opinion on the registration drive.
But Kevin Mannix, chairman of the state Republican Party, called Lindback's interpretation "stupid" and took a jab at Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, a Democrat who oversees the Elections Division.
"The secretary of state has stretched the law beyond common understanding," Mannix said.
He'd like to see a debate in the Legislature about whether pretrial detainees and inmates convicted of misdemeanors can vote, but said incarcerated felons should be prohibited from voting.
Sarabi, however, said getting inmates interested in elections may help make their transition back into the community easier.
As of late last week, she said, about 300 inmates had been registered in Multnomah and Marion counties. They will receive their Voters' Pamphlets and ballots in jail.
She didn't know how many were registering as Republicans and how many were signing on as Democrats. But a sample of felons who registered after their release, she said, showed about half had registered as independents, more than 30 percent registered as Democrats and the rest signed up as Republicans.
Despite Lindback's clarification and the registration drive, the law is still not widely understood, Sarabi said, even among elections officials. Giusto agreed.
"We know people are going to have a problem with this," he said.
Although Giusto has reservations about the law, he doesn't think the sheriff's office should prevent inmates from registering. So, when the Western Prison Project approached him about the registration drive, he agreed to allow the group access to inmates.
Don Michael, Jr., 31, also registered to vote for the first time last week at Inverness and calls himself an independent. He is being held for a probation violation on a misdemeanor charge of menacing. Like Schaefer, he didn't think he was eligible to vote while in custody.
"I thought it was a lot more complicated before," Michael said. "But it was really simple."
Schaefer, a Portland resident who is due to be released in March, registered as a Democrat because that's how his family has always voted. He has been reading about the issues and is eager to cast his ballot.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't know why I never registered to vote. But it gives me a new outlook. So, if any issue comes up, at least I can put my two cents in."
Bump to that!
One of the other travelling admins in my office recently went to Eugene and Portland, Ore for a 2 week project. In the head office here, he's known as a very weak moderate politically, some even call him a closet lib. He was led to believe he was a draconian right-winger out there by co-workers. He says the place is filthy with enviro-nuts and hippies. I always wanted to go see the beauty of Oregon too, darnit.
I would still come, but just stay away from Portland or Eugene.
When you drive on I-5 going South from Portland, you will notice 90% of the political signs are Republican.
I believe if you ignore the vote of Multnomah county (mostly Portland) Bush would win Oregon in a landslide.
It is a shame.
I am with you. I expect voter fraud to be rampant in this election and that will cause the results to be close and then the thousands of liberal lawyers will try to get Kerry/Edwards over the hump.
I'll get there sooner or later.
I've been in 17 countries and half the States in the U.S. and I have never seen a place a beautiful as Oregon.
What are the chances of The Prez carrying the state this year?
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I don't know why I never registered to vote. But it gives me a new outlook. So, if any issue comes up, at least I can put my two cents in."
And get his 2 packs of cigarettes.
It is 50/50.
The state's conservatives are mobilized to vote in a constitutional amendment for marriage to be between one man/one woman.
Which should pass handily.
But the Liberals are busily signing up voters wherever they can and that concerns me.
Plus all our voting is by mail and is vulnerable for voter fraud.
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