Stateline has this useful article, with a clear map, showing the law in each state on ex-felon voting. There are five categories of state: (1) once convicted can never vote unless individual gets cleared by some agency of government, such as the governor; (2) can register as soon as released; (3) can always vote, even while serving sentence: (4) can register as soon as released and not on parole; (5) can register as soon as released and on neither parole nor probation.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
3 is the way all states should go.
Two states are #3 (can always vote, even while serving sentence): Vermont and Maine.
I agree with the other guy. You should never lose the right to vote, unless you give it up voluntarily. And by that I don’t mean “you decided when you committed the crime!” nonsense, but more like became a citizen elsewhere.
Mass was 3 but gave it up in a fear based referendum, dc is about to go 3. Few USA states but common in many nations.
Again – how many convicts due to FALSE rigged evidence —
esp in olde ex-slave States ???
Lots and lots as well as many people convicted of what shouldn’t be crimes at all, but all that glossed over a more fundamental issue of why anyone should be disenfranchised for any crime at all, ever. Short answer: no one should be.
A compromise: ex-felons get their vote back the day they get their guns back. If you don’t trust him with a trigger, I don’t trust him with a lever.
They should have their gun rights back as soon as released from prison. But I don’t see a security threat from prisoners voting as there would be if they were armed while incarcerated. So I don’t see the validity of that analogy. As mentioned already some states and many foreign nations already allow prisoners to vote. Do any allow prisoners to be armed?
ANY visits to lifer prisons [with child/serial/cop killers] by Prez/Guv candidates lately ???
Vote for ME and I will set U free ???
They could probably visit prisons safely. Security precautions exist to protect visitors from violent inmates and lots of people visit prisons all the time, almost always safely. The vast majority of prison inmates, even ones convicted years ago of past violent crimes, are not a current serious threat risk, and the security measures in place make prisons in many ways safer as a potential campaign stop than many other potential spots. However, even if inmates were allowed to vote in other states as they are in Maine and Vermont , there aren’t enough of them in any one prison to make sense as a campaign stop for the purpose of getting votes from inmates. If presidential campaigns visit prisons it would more likely be to make some kind of point to people outside the prisons, not those inside. Furthermore, inmates already get newspapers and other publications, letters, phone calls, visits, radio, tv, and in some cases internet. There are any number of ways for campaigns to communicate with inmates besides in person visits from candidates.
That being said, they could in fact make sense as campaign stops for third party and independent candidates or perhaps during the cattle call phase of democratic party primaries.
Vote for me and I’ll set you free is a nonsensical scare tactic for opposing inmate voting. If you mean individual inmate pardons there’s no way to know how any individual inmate would vote. They could announce how they voted, but could be lying. If you mean repealing laws against say murder, robbery or rape, most inmates don’t even support getting rid of such laws, and even if they did, any politician announcing support for repealing such laws would lose far more votes from everyone else, and wouldn’t need to worry about actually being elected and having to keep or not keep any such promise. Needless to say no politicians campaign on any such promises in Maine, Vermont or any of the many foreign nations which permit inmate voting. Certainly not any with any real chance of winning at any rate. If you mean say support for repealing drug laws, they should be repealed any way, and there is far more support on terms of raw numbers of votes for that from non prisoners than there would be added if prisoners were allowed to vote. Furthermore, many prisoners embrace fundamentalist religions and many do not support repealing drug laws. Others who hope to continue making money off illegal drugs upon release also do not support that because they see it as bad for profit.
But regardless of what prisoners do or do not support it isn’t likely to cause politicians to embrace policies they otherwise wouldn’t since there are not enough prisoners for that to happen. If we get to the point where there would be enough prisoners vis a vis all other potential voters for that to happen we’ll have far more serious problems as a society than whether or not drug laws are repealed.
The reason to allow prisoners to vote has less to do with swinging elections than it does with actually meaningfully rehabilitating prisoners and making them feel like a part of normal non criminal society, marginally increasing chances of successful reintegration and decreasing chances of recidivism.
Many convicts are mentally ill — are in slammers since regimes cut back lots in late 1900s for mental health care — due in part to bleeding heart liberals.
If you can demonstrate that they individually are not mentally competent those individuals can individually be barred from voting. Belonging to some class of people many of whom are not mentally competent isn’t sufficient reason to take away any mentally competent individual’s right to vote.
Mentally competent = super subjective
— about as subjective as culture reviews – art, music, movies, etc.