The Legal Lynching Of Pamela Moses For Trying To Register To Vote
Rachel Maddow’s account of Pamela Moses’ attempt to register to vote paints her as entirely innocent. The Guardian calls Moses' case “far more complex than it seems.” What seems indisputable is that Moses, a felon, tried to register to vote when she was ineligible and that Tennessee officials made a series of mistakes, including providing her with a signed certificate saying that her probation had ended, a requirement for felons who want to vote. Moses submitted that certificate along with her voter registration form.
“Such errors are actually fairly common in Tennessee, where the voting rules are extremely confusing for people with felonies,” The Guardian says. Nevertheless, prosecutors claim Moses knew she was ineligible to vote and tricked officials into giving her the certificate.
I’m a long way from buying the prosecutors’ argument but let’s say the worst is true and that Moses deliberately tried to game the system and vote. What the heck kind of sentence is six years for such a thing? Moses didn’t try to rob or assault anyone. She didn’t even try to vote. Whatever Moses' intentions, the elections officials’ incompetence is at least partly blame. That’s not counting the fact that there’s no good reason to permanently bar any citizens from the right to vote.