According to the following article, almost 6 million Amercians cannot vote in federal elections because they have felony records. I have two questions: (1) What is the justification for not allowing a felon to vote?, and (2) why should states be allowed to have different standards with regard to who is allowed to vote? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/1 ... 65860.html

The first instinct is to say of course felons shouldn't be allowed to vote, but I think voting is a right which you shouldn't lose. If someone is in jail, then I don't see that we have to make provision for them to vote. And I don't think it would be a big deal to ban felons from voting if they are on probation or parole. But after that they shoulld automatically get their vote back--not be allowed be banned for life from voting or have to apply for reinstatement. Here at least I am not even looking at this as a political issue (as in most of these voters would vote for a Democrat), but just as a Constitutional one.

I'll join you in righting this wrong--as soon as you agree to mandatory ID to vote.

Done. Id laws inconvenience voters (resulting in an advantage for Republicans) but they don't take away the vote.

freeman2 wrote:Done. Id laws inconvenience voters (resulting in an advantage for Republicans) but they don't take away the vote.

All right! We have agreement.

Moving on.

Kumbaya!

Complete agreement.

Any idea when this disenfranchisement started and how it was justified at the time?

In the UK we do not allow prisoners to vote, but once released, even while on parole, they will be re-enfranchised. And recently the European Court has ruled that a blanket ban on prisoners having a vote is unfair, so while the currrent government opposes change, we may see in time a situation where prisoners on short sentences or in for minor crimes can vote.

Not so fast. Once released AND parole completed.

The problem with not allowing convicted felons to vote is that in effect society is telling them that although they're still bound by the laws of the land they no longer have any right to a say in how those laws are made. There's something fundamentally anti-democratic about that, and it also strikes me as being potentially counterproductive since it may serve to weaken their sense of being part of society and encourage recidivism.

good point ... it's also not a deterrent to the original crime. So far we have full agreement on this one.

RUFFHAUS 8 wrote:As for the second part of the question, the states have the right to decide these things for themselves as provided for by the 10th Ammendment. It's clear as day, and just as intended to be

Randy, I really respect and like you but you have to actually read the constitution a little more. It isn't the 10th Amendment that gives states the right but rather Article I Sec.2 that gives the States the right to have differing election qualifications.

As for the question as to why states should have differing voter laws. There was actually a rather lengthy discussion of this during the convention. The jist of the discussion was that States were going to be establishing the qualifications of electors for state offices. Some states had broader qualifications then others. How could the Federal Government establish a rule of voting in Federal elections that was stricter then some of the states, i.e. I am a leaseholder that can vote for my state legislature but not my U.S. Congressman because the Federal gov't requires a freehold. (For those interested, I got this information from notes of James Madison as edited by Edward Larson titled The Constitutional Convention.)