Felon VotingFollow

Maine and Vermont are the only two states that allow felons to vote, even while incarcerated. Nine other states disenfranchise felons permanently, while the norm is to disallow voting only while serving a sentence and perhaps during probation.

The Felon Voting Organization estimated that there are currently nearly 6 million felons who are disenfranchised. That's nearly 2% of the US population.

Questions:

Should convicted felons get to vote while in prison, after serving their term or ever?

Could the prison vote make a difference in an election - locally, or at federal or state level?

Do you think a politician would ever pander to the prisoners ...perhaps while covertly trying to change laws to allow them to vote?

What kind of leader do you think the general felon population would support, or perhaps the group is too diverse to categorize??

Edit: Another question, what's a wild estimated of the percentage of felons that would bother voting even if they could?

Edited, Mar 5th 2013 2:12pm by Elinda

The point of prison is to rehabilitate criminals

I don't really pay attention, but which non US country are you from?

Since when?

As Joph mentioned, it could be potentially problematic in local votes. Particularly in those where judges are up for re-election. I don't have a problem with them being able to vote again once their probationary period is over, but I wouldn't think they should until then at least.

The one with weed, prostitutes, cheese and tulips.

My husband is currently pondering the creation of a line of high-end hand-made collector bongs in the advent of recreational dope becoming legal. He wants to use different specialty woods and what-not.

Do you have anything like that there?

If they wanna bother getting absentee ballots so they can vote in their own district, sure, why not? Fixes Joph's issue.

I doubt it'll matter much, though. The majority of prisoners probably wouldn't bother, just like how about half the registered voters already don't bother.



If he's using wood to make bongs, he's doing it wrong. Glass is the go too, although vaporizers are the healthier alternative & seem to be increasing in popularity.



If "here" is anywhere other than the US, they do, & they mix tobacco with it. Only us crazy Americans seem to smoke it straight.

Edited, Mar 5th 2013 10:31am by Omegavegeta

I don't have a real problem in theory with letting them vote in federal or statewide elections. Unfortunately, there's no way to divorce that from voting in local elections and the prison population probably makes up a significant part of the population in many prison towns. As a random example, Pontiac Illinois has 11,000 people and has a state prison housing 1,600 prisoners. That'd be ~10% of the population. Even for Congressional House elections, they could potentially swing a vote. I'm not sure I'm cool with the idea that the local inmates would be a major swing vote for the local mayor, sheriff, county board or whatever.

Right, we wouldn't want them to have a voice in the conditions of their incarceration. It's not like they're PEOPLE.

Prison-People!

But wouldn't the wood mellow and add flavor - like it does to bourbon or scotch?

Well, if I was imprisoned, not being able to vote would probably be about #442 on my list of current issues. But that's the topic the OP gave me.

I don't know, I've worked in a few prisons when I was in school. I think it would be a significant issue. Obviously the fear of physical harm is real, but mostly it's the overwhelming feeling of abject powerlessness that drives much of the negative consequences of being imprisoned. There's an argument that's part of the punitive aspect, but it doesn't seem particularly useful.

I think if they were already registered to vote, they shouldn't lose the right. However, if they were not registered to vote at the time they committed the crime, the state is under no obligation to hold voter registration drives at the prison or to go out of their way to get them registered. Also, they probably need to vote absentee at best and be barred from participating in the campaign process.

I have no issue letting someone vote once they're out of prison or on probation.

Felons being disenfranchised is pretty low on my list of concerns.

Sure, it's not impacting you, so fuck the other guy, right? Enlightened way to order your concerns. "Does it directly effect me? No? Fuck it, then."