Thread by @donmoyn

This is an example of what @victorerikray @pamela_herd & I describe as radicalized burdens.
When you understand that Wisconsin has the highest racial prison disparities in the country the effect of imposing financial barriers for former felons to vote becomes clear.

https://twitter.com/RepHebl/status/1478384878899146755

In Wisconsin
*Black people constitute 6% of the population and 42% of the prison population
*Blacks are incarcerated 12 times the rate of whites, compared to a ratio of 5:1 for the rest of the US
*1 in 36 Black adults are in prison, highest rate in the US wpr.org/wisconsin-impr…

Gah - meant *racialized burdens* not radicalized burdens.

When you incorporate POC disproportionately (see below for WI), other barriers you impose on the status of incarceration necessarily have a racialized effect.

documentcloud.org/documents/2047…

The effects of felon disenfranchisement have grown: More than 5 million potential voters are disenfranchised today, compared to just over 1M in 1976.
Over 6.2% of the Black adult population have lost voting rights as a result, compared to 1.7% of others. sentencingproject.org/publications/l…

The law being proposed in WI mimics a FL law that was adopted to effectively overturn a 2018 referendum to let former felons vote. The result was that just 8% of eligible former felons were registered by 2020. propublica.org/article/in-flo…

I can't say what is in the hearts of legislators, but we can a) predict with some confidence that this bill disproportionately hurt Black people and b) is consistent with electoral policies of this party to diminish voting access for Black voters. Thats just common sense.