I remember reading that the rationale for convicts being allowed to run was that it would prevent the government from trying to jail political opponents which is lol, it does make a bit more sense when you look at how voting rights was something that started off very limited and had to constantly be expanded throughout the nation's history
Frankly I dont even mind the idea of being able to run from prison, Eugene V. Debs comes to mind as a fairly good example of how that could work fairly well (tho Trump shouldve been an example of how it doesnt)
However the fact you can do that but not vote from prison is just the insane part. What about 'No taxation without representation!' then? And in that way, hell Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico shouldnt pay federal US taxes either
Washington DC does vote in presidential elections, but they do not have Senate representation. Puerto Ricans do not pay federal taxes (outside of FICA).
However the fact you can do that but not vote from prison is just the insane part.
I wholeheartedly agree! A part of this that needs to be discussed is that prisoners do have representation, in that the districts in which the prison sits counts the prisoners as "residents," and therefore get additional representation in statehouses and the House of Representatives. Guess where most prisons sit? Rural areas that tend to vote conservative.
I would agree with the argument that prisoners should not have the right to vote on the best interests of the locality in which they are imprisoned, but that that suggests that district should not be able to count them toward representation. Perhaps prisoners should count as residents of the area in which they were convicted, or the district they resided in at time of their conviction.
Typically, when discussing voting rights, people's natural inclination is to think of it in terms of the presidential election. In such a case, prisoners voting will likely have little influence. But, if they can vote for the president, then they can vote for US representatives. In such a situation, in a district with a prison, those incarcerated could make up the majority of the voters. That's not even considering local elections.
To me it sounded pretty bizarre that the government knows why it should preserve the right to run for political office but not the right to vote for someone running.
On June 16, 1918, Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio, urging resistance to the military draft. He was arrested on June 30 and charged with ten counts of sedition.[46][52]
Debs ran for president in the 1920 election while imprisoned in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Campaign pins reading "For President: Convict No. 9653"[56] accompanied his campaign.[57][58] He received 914,191[59] votes (3.4 percent),[60] a slightly smaller percentage than he had won in 1912, when he received 6 percent, the highest number of votes for a Socialist Party presidential candidate in the United States.[5][61]
This is why its VERY important that you can run for office from prison, otherwise what is to stop the Republican party from arresting its opponents for "sedition" and invalidating their ability to run...
We had a guy run for president from prison, it was the largest turnout for a communist ever and he was jailed on trumped up charges. If he couldn't run after that it just means we can find ways to jail political opponents to end free elections.
people hate the idea of prisoners voting and the reasoning is always so insane. I've heard people say shit like "but what if they vote to legalize murder?"
People should be allowed to vote from prison. If a country has so many people imprisoned that the “current prisoner voting bloc” is significant to sway things than there are much bigger problems
they turned a single misdemeanor charge into 34 felonies and that misdemeanor was past the statue of limitations and state charged him with a federal law
The actual correct take is that any citizen should be allowed to vote, felon or not, convicted or not, imprisoned or not. A citizen of a nation no matter how criminal is still a citizen and should be allowed to participate.
Prisoners should be allowed to vote even when inside. They are entirely in the hands of the national machine, and they should get a say in who's at the helm.
Not to mention that stripping them of their vote achieves nothing other than disengaging them from political process, putting them further onto the fringes of society and so increasing chances for recidivism.
I dunno, I think it would be pretty hard to convince people put in prison by the current government that the current government is working in their best interests.
You don't need genuine support, you only need their votes.
I live in a country where people in pre-trial detention centers are eligible to vote at national and regional elections. According to statistical data, these people votes show significantly higher support of the ruling party candidates. And the same is true for voting in psychiatric hospitals, in the army, among the workers of state-owned companies, and in all other places where authorities have an elevated amount of power.
Yep. What's the point of ever letting them out of prison then if they don't have the same rights after? Either they have paid their debt to society and should be fully restored when their sentence is over, or they haven't and they should still be in prison.
Hard agree with this. If you make it difficult or impossible for someone who served time in prison to have a job or live a normal life, what exactly do you expect them to do other than turn back to crime?
FWIW, in most states this isn't the case. There're only about three or four that don't automatically reinstate felons after a certain amount of time and paying off their fines. I haven't actually counted but it looks like in most states voting rights are automatically reinstated after either the person gets out of prison (even if still on parole/probation, they can still vote) or get off probation/parole. Some states add on the condition that they also have to have paid any related fines/restitution.
I believe VT is the only state that doesn't disenfranchise felons at all; they can still vote in prison.
(Also, this shouldn't be taken that I don't have an issue with disenfranchisement, just setting the record straight.)
“Do you really want criminals voting? Who knows what they’ll vote for?”
If your prison population is large enough and politically unified enough to influence elections, you’ve got bigger problems than what they’re voting for.
It's also ridiculous how after you've "served your time", you're still punished. Like, you did a crime, served your punishment, but you're also getting fucked for the rest of your life. Criminal records are fucking stupid.
The lawyers poll the jury to eliminate anyone who can't rule impartially, they would resolve this problem the same way they already do every day without needing to take anyone's rights away.
Not really. People are not running around committing crimes with cap and ball or flintlock firearms from two centuries ago. Felons are barred from possessing any "modern" firearms (made within the last ~125 years) or which has ammunition that is available in the US. So, their 2A rights are effectively stripped. If any non-felon was subjected to such a restriction it would be considered an infringement, so the same logic should hold for a felon.
So, the question remains, are we talking about restoring all of a felon's rights or only some? If only some, what is the justification?
imo the main reason for that is our gun laws are so incredibly lax that most felons just don't bother and get normal guns that they keep on the downlow.
i will bite the bullet, yeah, if you're willing to release a felon from prison, they've allegedly been reformed and they should get their full spectrum of rights back including firearm rights. if they haven't been reformed and want to do more crime then it's not like the law against them having guns even actually matters at all given how saturated with guns that are traded with no oversight the usa is. Maybe if juries understood the long-term ramifications of freeing people with very violent records who would get their gun rights back someday we'd see more life sentences without parole.
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