Felon Voting Laws Disenfranchise 5.85 Million Americans With Criminal Records:The Sentencing Project

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Felon Voting Laws Disenfranchise 5.85 Million Americans With Criminal Records: The Sentencing Project

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/12/felon-voting-laws-disenfranchise-sentencing-project_n_1665860.html

A record number of Americans with criminal records cannot vote in what is expected to be a tight presidential election, a new study says.

More than 5.85 million adults who've been convicted of a felony aren't welcome at polling places, according to data through 2010 compiled by The Sentencing Project. That's 600,000 more than in 2004, the last time the nonprofit group crunched the numbers.

The vast majority of these disenfranchised adults have been released from prison. Sentencing Project researchers found more than 4 million Americans who cannot cast a ballot because they're on probation or parole, or live in a state that withholds the right to vote from all ex-felons.

"This is a fundamental question of democracy," said the Sentencing Project's executive director Marc Mauer. "These policies go back to the founding of this country. [The U.S.] was founded as a great experiment in democracy, but was very limited. Wealthy, white male landowners granted themselves the right to vote, but women, poor people, African Americans and people with felony convictions could not vote.

[unblock]

1. very simply: no government should have the power to remove voting rights from its subjects.

it's not a matter of what "they deserve".
it's a matter of the powers we grant to governments.
granting the power to a government to define pick and choose which subjects votes will lead to corruption and tyrrany.

[arthritisR_US]

2. Voter suppression hard at work ...

[backscatter712]

4. No. It's clear that voter disenfranchisement is abused, frequently.

How does removing the right to vote make society safer? If somebody commits a crime, by all means, throw him in jail, slap him with fines, impose conditions of probation. That kind of thing deters crime and makes it harder for criminals to re-offend. Taking away their right to vote doesn't do that, and also comes with an amazing incentive to create as many "criminals" as possible - that not-so-coincidentally tend to vote Democratc.

But thank you for your concern.

[PETRUS]

6. Emphatically disagree

In my view, felons should be allowed to vote even while under correctional supervision.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Amerigo Vespucci.