:hi:Love your screen name. (fits my mood this morning)
Here's what I could find on Maryland:
Fact of the Week:
No Taxation without Representation! On April 15th, nearly five million Americans who even after paying their taxes, will be denied the right to vote due to a felony conviction.
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Today, 4.7 million Americans cannot vote. Because of racial, ethnic, and economic disparities in the criminal justice system, the impact is most severe in communities of color: an estimated 13 percent of African American men are unable to vote because of a felony conviction. That’s seven times the national average.
But there’s reason to hope; thanks to extensive grassroots efforts, an increasing number of people with felony convictions are regaining their voting rights.
Several states, including Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and New Mexico have reformed their voting policies. It’s clear that most people in the United States want a change: In a recent national survey, 80 percent of those polled supported the restoration of voting rights for people convicted of felonies who have completed their sentences.
http://www.righttovote.org/informed.asp?subsection=facts-----
Laws such as Florida's -- which also exist in Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska and Virginia -- appear in
less restrictive forms in seven other states, including Maryland, that ban only certain categories of ex-felons from voting. These laws are a vestige of a time when states sought to discourage blacks from voting, and they do, in fact, disproportionately disenfranchise African Americans. Eight percent of blacks in Maryland are deprived of the vote; in Virginia and Florida, a staggering 16 percent of the black population is disenfranchised.
Attempts in Maryland and Virginia to restore ex-felons' voting rights need much work. A Maryland law that was passed with great fanfare in 2002 and that was intended to automatically restore voting rights to more nonviolent ex-felons is proving ineffective.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48001-2004Jun16.html-----
Before 2002, a person convicted of a felony was barred from being able to vote ever again.
Now Maryland law allows a felon to vote following the completion of a sentence, unless they are a second-time offender, who must wait three years before they can be reinstated. http://www.newsline.umd.edu/politics/specialreports/elections04/felonsvote021904.htm-----
In 2002, Maryland repealed its ban on ex-felons who had committed two felonies, with an exception for those who had committed two violent felonies. incredibly long Google cached link