And to the extent that prisoners have strong feelings about the criminal justice system, should that not factor in to the electoral arena? After all, oil company executives, labor union members, and religious leaders have expertise and opinions about their life experiences that they bring to the voting booth. Amir was convicted of killing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and was one of the most despised individuals in the country.
When this nation was founded as an experiment in democracy two centuries ago it was a very limited experiment. Over time evolving public sentiment has enfranchised all those groups, and we now look back on that moment with a great deal of national embarrassment.
This would represent a healthy contribution to democracy, as well as enhance public safety. Related Posts publications. Nicole D. The Pennsylvania General Assembly is considering ending lifetime parole supervision. In , nearly 70 percent of Americans were against it. But the best way to reenfranchise felons is to not take away the right to vote in the first place, and allow people to continue voting through their prison sentence.
In reality, felon disenfranchisement has disproportionately impacted people of color, reducing the political power of Black people in particular. Many felon disenfranchisement laws cropped up around the time of Reconstruction, specifically to diminish the political power of Black people and the formerly enslaved population. And it has only been exacerbated by modern-day mass incarceration, in which the prison populations exploded, so you have from just a numbers point of view even more and more people losing the right to vote because of a felony conviction.
Another reason prisoners should have the right to vote is to ease the difficulty in reenfranchising felons. Upon release, many felons may be confused about what rights they have, and are forced to navigate a complicated bureaucracy in order to have their voting rights restored.
Whereas criminal disenfranchisement communicates to felons that they are second-class citizens, compulsory criminal voting reinforces the idea that democratic rights are an important responsibility. If we think criminals see themselves as above the law, compulsory criminal voting sends a strong message that felons are fellow citizens, that we are all in this together, whether we like it or not.
Compulsory prisoner voting might play a civic role as well. Felons disproportionately come from disadvantaged socio-economic groups. People from poorer backgrounds are less likely to vote and those who have been arrested, tried and punished are even less likely to do so.
Compulsory criminal voting can therefore help habituate otherwise marginalised and excluded citizens to exercise their democratic rights. Our proposal for compulsory criminal voting is not entirely without precedent.
Up until , in Ohio in the United States, judge Cassandra Collier-Williams used to order some defendants to either turn out to vote or face jail time. Collier-Williams put an end to her compulsory voting orders following concern that her practice violated the first amendment rights to freedom of speech. But there is nothing antidemocratic about compulsory criminal voting, as long as felons are not obliged to vote one way or the other.
Even if required to vote, felons would still retain their freedom to spoil their ballot or vote blank. Forcing felons to cast valid votes would be a violation of their freedom of speech — and would amount to electoral fraud, too.
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