Worley Watch

The Birmingham News reported Wednesday that Nancy Worley has been sued for alleged violations of voting rights.

The article states:

The suit says the state constitution is clear that people convicted of certain felonies including DUI and drug possession - unlike murder, rape or robbery - do not lose their voting rights and do not need to apply for an eligibility certificate from the board.

The situation is an interesting twist on the voting rights issue. On one side, Troy King, the Republican Attorney General, has stated that under the state Constitution, some convicted felons do not lose their right to vote. On the other side, Nancy Worley, a Democratic Secretary of State, insists that all felons lose their right to vote upon conviction.

Article VIII of the Constitution was amended in 1996 and now says this:

No person convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude, or who is mentally incompetent, shall be qualified to vote until restoration of civil and political rights or removal of disability.

Originally, Article VIII said:

The following persons shall be disqualified both from registering, and from voting, namely: All idiots and insane persons; those who shall by reason of conviction of crime be disqualified from voting at the time of the ratification of this Constitution; those who shall be convicted of treason, murder, arson, embezzlement, malfeasance in office, larceny, receiving stolen property, obtaining property or money under false pretenses, perjury, subornation of perjury, robbery, assault with intent to rob, burglary, forgery, bribery, assault and battery on the wife, bigamy, living in adultery, sodomy, incest, rape, miscegenation, crime against nature, or any crime punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, or of any infamous crime or crime involving moral turpitude; also, any person who shall be convicted as a vagrant or tramp, or of selling or offering to sell his vote or the vote of another, or of buying or offering to buy the vote of another, or of making or offering to make a false return in any election by the people or in any primary election to procure the nomination or election of any person to any office, or of suborning any witness or registrar to secure the registration of any person as an elector.

A court has already issued an initial ruling suggesting that Worley is wrong. We'll have to wait to see how the courts sort out the issue.