A truly democratic government cannot work effectively without voting participation by the governed population. American citizens, fortunate to live in a democratic republic, are able to influence issues at the federal, state, and local level by voting for representatives who share their views and by voting directly on select laws or policies at the state and local level.
Given the voter turnout in America, fluctuating around 60 percent for presidential elections and 40 percent for midterm elections, many Americans have taken the right to vote for granted, squandering their ability to influence this country’s government. To forfeit one’s vote is an unfortunate choice far too many people make, but what if these people outright lost the ability to vote?
In 10 states, voting rights are lost permanently when a citizen is convicted of a felony: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and Wyoming. From a moral perspective, it feels right to prevent the worst people in our society from having equal influence on the government as law-abiding citizens.
Unfortunately, this issue is not so clear-cut as it first appears. After all, not all felonies are deserving of a permanent punishment.
Once a felon is released from jail and finishes parole or probation, it is expected that he or she will reintegrate into society. However, this reintegration is made unnecessarily difficult by the multiple barriers facing felons once they leave prison.
These barriers includes difficulty finding employment, being denied living quarters, and financial issues that come from dealing with for-profit probation and parole services. Without the right to vote, felons, who are still citizens and should be represented in the democratic process, no longer have the means to influence the legislative process.
More effective laws to aid felons’ transition into a normal life might be introduced, and subsequently passed, if a larger portion of the voting population is invested in the issue.
It is debatable whether laws reinstating felon voting rights should make exceptions for certain crimes, but many felony charges arise from crimes that can be easily forgiven, thus allowing felons to re-enter society fairly quickly. The maximum sentence for a felony can be as low as five years while the highest maximum sentence, excluding crimes resulting in a death, is 25 years, although these sentences do vary slightly by state.
Citizens convicted of felonies in the aforementioned ten states, despite being released from jail and forgiven on paper, will be punished the rest of their lives through the loss of their ability to vote. It does not make sense to take away someone’s ability to vote away permanently when his or her crime only warranted 25 years or less in jail.
It is also worth noting that the loss of voting rights due to felony convictions disproportionately affects minorities, African American citizens in particular. Sadly, this is likely due to the situations which led to the creation of these laws. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe recently signed an executive order to reinstate voting rights for over 200,000 felons who have finished parole or probation, in an effort to correct the wrongs that led to the law in the first place.
The law leading to a loss of voting rights for a felony conviction was added to the state legislation in 1902 alongside laws that instituted poll taxes and literacy tests for voters, practices recognized as being discriminatory.
With this being an election year, the restoration of voting rights is being portrayed as a political issue that divides along party lines, but this issue needs to be bipartisan if the democratic system is going to survive this election cycle. Individuals should be allowed to vote, a right they are guaranteed as citizens, regardless of the party they might vote for in future elections.
If politicians dictate who can vote based solely on social class or political leanings, then our government is starting down a path that leads to oligarchy, a system in which the powerful and wealthy overrule the opinion of the majority. While felons may be less-than-stellar citizens, they are citizens nonetheless and should not be permanently silenced.
Doing so forces disenfranchised felons to rely on more fortunate individuals to correctly determine what is in their best interest, rather than voting on the issues themselves.
It is time to restore voting rights to all citizens who have managed to work free of the prison system, and to welcome them back into society as the full-fledged citizens that they are.