"Vote SAFE: Safe And Fair Elections Act"

First, a little bit of context.

California Constitution, Art. 2, Sec. 4 states:

The Legislature shall prohibit improper practices that affect elections and shall provide for the disqualification of electors while mentally incompetent or imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony.

In 2006, the California court of appeal in the first appellate district interpreted the above phrase and affirmed that, as long as the person is neither imprisoned in a state prison nor on parole under the supervision of the Department of Corrections), s/he has the right to vote under the California Constitution. See League of Women Voters v. McPherson, 145 Cal.App.4th 1469 (2006). In other words, those on felony probation, even if they are incarcerated in a county jail as a condition of probation, have the right to vote.

This might change soon.

Last year, California State Senator George Runner introduced an initiative (Prop 6) that sought to treat more and younger children as adults for the purpose of criminal prosecution. It failed by a wide margin. This year, Sen. Runner is back with another initiative, called "Vote SAFE: Safe And Fair Elections Act, " which attempts to overturn League of Women Voters.

The initiative proposes to amend the relevant section of the Elections Code to read:

A person entitled to register to vote shell be a United States citizen, a resident of California, not in prison or on parole or probation for the conviction of a felony, and at least 18 years of age at the time of the next election.

"Conviction of a felony" for purposes of this code means conviction of a felony offense which results in incarceration in prison or parole or felony probation.

All of Us or None in Califronia had an all-chapter conference last month (which I couldn't attend due to work) and another conference call this morning (which I did participate in) to discuss how to oppose this initiative. Part of our effort will be directed to educating the public and other community-based organizations about this ironically-named initiative. And we are planning more direct action, once Sen. Runner's camp starts collecting signatures for the initiative in its final form. Stay tuned.