Felon Disenfranchisement
Felons and Voting There are millions of disenfranchised felons and they are the last group of American citizens that are still being denied the right to vote. There are groups today that argue that the disenfranchisement of anyone is unconstitutional, but a person who commits a felony obviously cannot abide by the laws of this country and should not have the right to decide who makes the laws for the rest of its citizens. However there are felons that will do their time, whether in prison, on parole, or probation, and return to be productive law abiding citizens which should be able to have a voice in who governs them and policies that will affect them. The way that felons may vote is a concern, for some fear that they would vote for people and policies that would change laws to be more lenient towards criminals, instead of voting with the best interests of all citizens in mind. Enfranchising all felons should not happen but state laws disenfranchising felons need to be more unified and consistent nationwide. There were 5.8 million Americans ineligible to vote in the 2012 because of disenfranchisement; about 1 out of 40 adult felons are denied the right to vote. (Uggen et al. 1) American felons do not simply give up their right to vote upon conviction, the basis of these laws came from the Greek policy of civil death for offenders of certain crimes. (Kleinig and Murtagh 218) The Supreme Court, in Tropp v. Dulles stated that “citizenship is not lost every time a duty of citizenship is shirked. And the deprivation of citizenship is not a weapon that the government may use to express its displeasure at a citizens conduct, however reprehensible that conduct may be”. (qtd. in Zeigler 213) And since the states have the right to decide the laws concerning voters and elections themselves disenfranchisement laws differ from one to another. Two people residing in different states with the exact same felony can have different levels of disenfranchisement forced upon
Cited: Altman, Andrew. "Democratic Self-Determination and the Disenfranchisement of Felons." Journal of Applied Philosophy 22.3 (2005): 263-73. Print. Ewald, Alec. "An "Agenda for Demolition": The Fallacy and Danger of the "Subversive Voting" Argument for Felony Disenfranchisement." Columbia Human Rights Law Review 36 (2004): 109-43. Print. Kleinig, John, and Kevin Murtagh. "Disenfranchising Felons." Journal of Applied Philosophy 22.3 (2005): 217-39. Print. Uggen, Christopher, Sarah Shannon, and Jeff Manza. State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement in the Unites States, 2010. Rep. Washington, D.C.: Sentencing Project, 2012. Print. Ushistory.org. "The South Secedes." Ushistory.org. US History Online Textbook, 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. <http://www.ushistory.org/us/32e.asp>. Zeigler, Reuven Ruvi. "Legal Outlier, Again? US Felon Suffrage: Comparative and International Human Rights Perspectives." Boston University International Law Journal 29.2 (2011): 197-266. Print.