Felony_Voting

Felony Disenfranchisement A convicted murderer, child molester, drug offender, and thief have at least two things in common- they are felons and they cannot vote in the state of Florida ever again in their natural life. The stripping of the right to vote from felons and ex-felons is called disenfranchisement. Other states that practice this include Alabama, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming. This makes an estimated 3.9 million U.S. citizens that are disenfranchised, including over one million who have fully completed their sentences. Doing this does not preserve the purity of the ballot box, does not act as a reasonable form of punishment, but does act as a form of political oppression and is a violation of our right to Democracy. The idea of preserving the purity of the ballot box is that voting should be reserved for those with high morals and good social standings. Felons are not seen as socially healthy, morally just, or good citizens and are therefore not fit enough to vote. If these are the pre-requisites for being able to vote then we might as well throw our idea of democracy out the window. If anyone wants to argue that our political voice should only include those who are mentally stable, virtuous, upstanding citizens, then I would ask that person to go home and take a long look in the mirror before continuing on with that argument. To prove my point, studies of self-reported crime show that crime, even serious crime, is quite widespread throughout the so-called "law-abiding" population. One study asked 1,020 adult males and 670 adult females (mostly from New York State) which of forty-nine offenses they had committed. "Ninety-one percent of the respondents admitted they had committed one or more offenses for which they might have received jail or prison sentences.... Sixty-four percent of the males and 27 percent of the females committed at least one felony for which they had not been apprehended. (Theo & Calhoun, 231). To actually be able to preserve the purity of the ballot, we would have to invest countless time and money into screening each and every person who applies to vote. Even then, how would we ever know who really is a good person, and who is better at hiding their faults' Consider this; a man rapes a child and doesn’t get caught. He votes and is able to do so because no one knows about his criminal behavior. On the other hand a young man makes the mistake of committing a non-violent drug offense, is now a tax paying over all good citizen with a family and he cannot vote because he is an ex-felon. How is this preserving any purity' Unless we want to hand over our rights to a small select group of people, we as a community have to understand that very few people live a criminal lifestyle 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Meaning, people make mistakes some big and some small but that does not mean we are beyond reform and unfit to have an influence in the community we live in. Besides, my general opinion is that if someone is so morally corrupt that their voting right should be taken away, they probably don’t have the mind set to care enough to vote in the first place. Disenfranchisement as a form of punishment is a joke. Pamela Karlan argues that, “as punishment, disenfranchisement violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. This is because it cannot reasonably serve any recognized penal goal: deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, or retribution”. I would not think for one second that the threat of taking away someone’s right to vote would stop them from committing the crime. The punishment can be viewed as a continuing consequence of their actions, but as stated above it is cruel to continue the punishment even after the debt to society has been paid. The “normal” community has a right to vote on what laws are passed, who takes office, and what taxes we will have to pay, an ex-felon does not have the same declaration and yet is expected to follow those same laws and pay those same taxes. That in itself seems to me to be a violation of civil rights. While an ex-felon can be granted clemency to have their rights re-instated it is a lengthy and costly process that is not even guaranteed, how’s that for cruel' Allowing voting in the prison system could even help inmates in their reform by the promotion of acting and participating responsibly in society. The right to vote is arguably the most important totem of democratic citizenship. Groups throughout American history, from women to African Americans to the poor, have struggled to achieve the full membership in the political community. (Furman, 1197). There is a long history in our fight against political suppression on the road towards universal suffrage, yet there is still segregation in our voting community and the restraint can be comparable to slavery. John Rawls points out that “when sane adults are deprived of the right to vote they are subjected to those who can vote since the voters can impose rules of behavior on the nonvoters without consulting them, and those rules will be coercively enforced. This shows that the right to vote is a very special right. It is not simply one way in which a self-governing person might choose to govern himself, it is a central ingredient in self-government itself. To deny the right to vote is more like denying the right to speak than it is like, say, denying the right to drive. It reduces people from citizens to subjects.” Not only is the act of disenfranchisement a disservice to the felon and their rights but it has an impact on the political sway of whole communities. Please consider, since high numbers of convicted felons tend to come from particular inner-city neighborhoods, the effect of disenfranchisement is to dilute the political voice of whole neighborhoods, including that of their law-abiding residents. (King and Mauer, 15). Another example of how the exclusion of felon votes weakens our political voice is the 2000 presidential election with Al Gore and George W. Bush. Studies show that Florida had approximately 614,000 ex-felons. Had they been allowed to vote, we estimate that some 27.2 percent would have turned out, and that 68.9 percent would have chosen the Democrat, Gore. This would have resulted in a net Democratic gain of 63,079 votes, and a final Gore victory margin of 62,542. Even if we assume that turnout rates among the disenfranchised ex-felons were only half that of the rate projected by our estimates, Gore still would have carried Florida by more than 31,000 votes, a margin large enough to have insured victory. (Manza and Uggen 499). This is an act of political offense and suppression at its best. If a particular group is prone to vote for a particular party, or course the opposing party will do its best to stop that from happening. Interesting how the same people who demand votes to come from virtuous citizens are the same group that stifles our political voice as a whole for personal gain. The alienation of felons in the elections will not filter out votes from corrupt individuals, nor is it a formidable means of punishment for criminals. Taking away the right for someone to vote is a violation of political rights and is a form of dominance that modifies the political influence of whole communities. Democracy is our right to a government by the people and to me, that should include every single American citizen. Works Cited Casper, Jonathan D.. American criminal justice: the defendant's perspective. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1972. Print. Furman, Jesse. "Political Illiberalism: The Paradox of Disenfranchisement and the Ambivalences of Rawlsian Justice." Yale Law Journal 106.1 (1996): 1197. Questia. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. Karlan, Pamela. "Convictions and Doubts: Retribution, Representation, and the Debate Over Felon Disenfranchisement by Pamela Karlan." Social Science Research Network. Version 1. Stanford Law School, n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. . King, Ryan , and Marc Mauer. "The Vanishing Black Electorate: Felony Disenfranchisement in Atlanta GA." The sentencing Project. Version 1. N.p., 1 Sept. 2004. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. . "Liberal and Republican Arguments Against the Disenfranchisement of Felons." Sentencing Project. Criminal Justice Ethics, n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2010. . Rawls, John. Political liberalism . New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Print. Thio, Alex, and Thomas C. Calhoun. "Criminologists as Criminals." Readings in deviant behavior . 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. 231-233. Print.