Voting rights for prisoners

[PyramidHead]

Why is the US one of the only industrialized nations that doesn't give all of its citizens the right to vote?

The prison population in this country is staggeringly high, and while the incarcerated are duly counted in the census for the purposes of drawing district lines, they are not consulted for their votes. Do you see the problem here?

Recently, Bernie Sanders stated he is in favor of extending voting rights to prisoners, and so far all of the other candidates who have been asked about it disagree. Their rationale is that the worst offenders, like terrorists or serial killers, should not enjoy the same rights as everyone else due to their crimes against society. That seems like a fair point at first blush, but it obscures the larger problem with our justice system. Such offenders make up a small minority of those in prison, so one wonders what the danger would be in counting their votes. In actuality, it's not these extreme cases that political elites are afraid of, it's the loss of political containment that allowing voting from prison would mean for them.

As it stands today, the same class of state-corporate interests has two highly relevant powers assigned to it: they can (1) define a category of citizens that is not allowed to participate in the political process and (2) decide who to put into that category. Imagine what the demographics of the prison population might look like if you had to guess, not knowing anything about the US except that the vast majority of its rulers in politics, technology, business, and finance are rich, connected white people. It should be obvious that the problem isn't giving Dylan Roof a vote, it's losing the ability to herd poor blacks and Hispanics into cages where they can't challenge the status quo. It's both politically expedient and highly profitable to keep doing that. Raising this issue early in the primaries is forcing the field of candidates to reveal where they land on a whole host of related issues, like prison reform, the drug war, and police brutality against blacks.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why is the US one of the only industrialized nations that doesn't give all of its citizens the right to vote?

Why is this in 'point out Trump's a manchild?'


But, eh, why not? I mean, we let 4chan users and incels have the vote.

But would they vote based on their home of record or the physical location of the prison? If they're voting by absentee ballot, it'd be harder to gerrymander their votes away.

 

[Patooka]

Are you paying tax? Then you should be allowed to vote.

 

[PyramidHead]

Are you paying tax? Then you should be allowed to vote.

How about: are you affected by the outcome of this election? Then you should be able to vote.

Imagine if the residents of every US-occupied territory had the power to voice their preferences rather than passively enduring American hegemony. But that's a topic for another day... for now, I'm interested in hearing where posters come down on the issue of convicted criminals in US prisons.

 

[hurtinbuckaroo]

In prison? No, you’ve been removed from the rest of society, and I’m fine with removing your voting rights too.

I’m also fine with what Florida did to restore voting rights to ex-cons.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I think that Sanders had an excellent point when he said that when we start drawing lines and saying "this group shouldn't vote" and "that group shouldn't vote", then we're drawing lines which shouldn't be drawn and damaging society, regardless of who is in those groups.

 

[PyramidHead]

In prison? No, you’ve been removed from the rest of society, and I’m fine with removing your voting rights too.

When the apparatus that has the power to put you in prison is the same one that is only kept in power by people not voting for their opponents, what could be the benefit of tying voting rights to incarceration?

 

[TSwizzle]

Not getting to vote in elections is part of the price you pay for getting incarcerated. I don't have a problem with it.

 

[PyramidHead]

Not getting to vote in elections is part of the price you pay for getting incarcerated. I don't have a problem with it.

Not in most countries, and those countries tend to have far fewer people in prison, and there is definitely a link to be found between those two facts.

 

[TSwizzle]

Not getting to vote in elections is part of the price you pay for getting incarcerated. I don't have a problem with it.

Not in most countries, and those countries tend to have far fewer people in prison, and there is definitely a link to be found between those two facts.

That's not going to change my mind as I don't live in most countries. I live in one country.

 

[Gun Nut]

Why is the US one of the only industrialized nations that doesn't give all of its citizens the right to vote?

Why is this in 'point out Trump's a manchild?'


But, eh, why not? I mean, we let 4chan users and incels have the vote.

But would they vote based on their home of record or the physical location of the prison? If they're voting by absentee ballot, it'd be harder to gerrymander their votes away.

Gerrymandering would then be about trying to get as many prisons in your state as possible, and keeping them full... not just for slave labor the Warden sells, but the fabricated / coerced votes that he sells based on the number of prisoners he has secured.

 

[Patooka]

Getting caught with weed when you are twenty should not disqualify you from voting for life. I'm surprised this even needs to be pointed out.

 

[Derec]

Getting caught with weed when you are twenty should not disqualify you from voting for life. I'm surprised this even needs to be pointed out.

I think felons should lose their voting rights while they serve their felony sentence including both incarceration and parole. Not for life, unless the sentence is life (with or without parole).

However, we should rethink what crimes we classify as felonies. Also, weed should be legal.

P.S.: Sanders is nuts!

 

[ZiprHead]

P.S.: Sanders is nuts!

Because you disagree with him he's nuts?

That's just nuts.

 

[bilby]

If you have a large enough fraction of your population in jail to make this question important, then denying prisoners the vote is going to seriously undermine democracy.

Of course, no sane and democratic society would incarcerate such a large fraction of its population, so the question will never arise.

Right?

Right?

Shit.

 

[PyramidHead]

Not getting to vote in elections is part of the price you pay for getting incarcerated. I don't have a problem with it.

Not in most countries, and those countries tend to have far fewer people in prison, and there is definitely a link to be found between those two facts.

That's not going to change my mind as I don't live in most countries. I live in one country.

You also live in one state called denial, lmao

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Prisoners are in prison in order to be rehabilitated. If you committed a serious crime against society, then your opinion probably shouldn't be trusted until such time as you are rehabilitated. So, in other words, maybe felons shouldn't be allowed to vote while in prison but after prison, they can vote?

 

[PyramidHead]

Prisoners are in prison in order to be rehabilitated. If you committed a serious crime against society, then your opinion probably shouldn't be trusted until such time as you are rehabilitated. So, in other words, maybe felons shouldn't be allowed to vote while in prison but after prison, they can vote?

I'll ask the same thing to you I keep asking of everybody else: why should the state have the power to decide that felons can't vote while simultaneously deciding who is and is not a felon? Why should someone being rehabilitated for drug possession or property damage lose their right to be heard on whether the country should go to war with Iran? The idea that one's credibility in a democratic system should be weighted by their status in the eyes of the law gives the state a blank check to legislate undesirable political opinions into silence. Voter ID laws are a classic example of this.

The strangeness of American punitive justice is that democracy and even individual human rights are always negotiable, never inviolable like the Bill of Rights claims. We're one of the only countries that explicitly, constitutionally permits slavery as punishment for a crime, in the form of unpaid or underpaid penal labor. This is all an enormous gift to capitalists who either own the prisons or own the property that prisoners work on for free. Notoriously, Kamala Harris as a prosecutor argued that a disadvantage of an early release program for well-behaved inmates was that it would deplete this pool of cheap labor. So, this boils down to a question of how you view your fellow human beings when they do something genuinely disruptive and dangerous or simply fall into a trap set for them by a predatory law enforcement officer, judge, or prosecutor. If they are still people, and people shouldn't spend their lives in a society whose policies and procedures are beyond their influence, then they ought to be able to vote. If they lose their status as people and become passive vessels for state-administered rehabilitation, in return for the use of their bodies as generators of profit they will never see, then giving them any form of control over the terms of that exchange (or anything else that society may do for them or their families on the outside) becomes counterproductive.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I asked a question that seems a reasonable POV: If you committed a serious crime against society, then your opinion probably shouldn't be trusted until such time as you are rehabilitated. So, in other words, maybe felons shouldn't be allowed to vote while in prison but after prison, they can vote? I also happen to think that universal right to vote is reasonable from an avoid-dictatorship perspective. I just don't have an extreme opinion one way or the other. Therefore, I didn't make a statement but instead a question.

Prisoners are in prison in order to be rehabilitated. If you committed a serious crime against society, then your opinion probably shouldn't be trusted until such time as you are rehabilitated. So, in other words, maybe felons shouldn't be allowed to vote while in prison but after prison, they can vote?

I'll ask the same thing to you I keep asking of everybody else: why should the state have the power to decide that felons can't vote while simultaneously deciding who is and is not a felon?
Why should someone being rehabilitated for drug possession or property damage lose their right to be heard on whether the country should go to war with Iran? The idea that one's credibility in a democratic system should be weighted by their status in the eyes of the law gives the state a blank check to legislate undesirable political opinions into silence. Voter ID laws are a classic example of this.

As far as your question: I think the answer is for the same reason that the state has the power to decide capital punishment, whatever reason that is. My question was also about felons in particular and crimes against society, not property damage or drug possession per se. I think that if a person is guilty of serious crimes against society such as murder, rape, or other extreme disrespect against persons, then it shows that the person ought not be trusted with other persons' welfare. My question didn't have to do with the state being allowed to make an arbitrary decision about not voting but instead one that makes sense where extreme abuse/crimes against society are forfeiture of right to being included in society positively until such time as positive participation in society is demonstrated thru rehabilitative evidence. For your example, I don't think possession of marijuana in any way is related to the ability to going to war against Iran, but I do think that lack of respect for limb and life is related. Basic property damage and possession of marijuana ought NOT be felonies in the first place. Selling crack or destroying a city bus with people inside seem different and indicative of a serious problem, needing rehabilitation.

The strangeness of American punitive justice is that democracy and even individual human rights are always negotiable, never inviolable like the Bill of Rights claims. We're one of the only countries that explicitly, constitutionally permits slavery as punishment for a crime, in the form of unpaid or underpaid penal labor. This is all an enormous gift to capitalists who either own the prisons or own the property that prisoners work on for free. Notoriously, Kamala Harris as a prosecutor argued that a disadvantage of an early release program for well-behaved inmates was that it would deplete this pool of cheap labor. So, this boils down to a question of how you view your fellow human beings when they do something genuinely disruptive and dangerous or simply fall into a trap set for them by a predatory law enforcement officer, judge, or prosecutor. If they are still people, and people shouldn't spend their lives in a society whose policies and procedures are beyond their influence, then they ought to be able to vote. If they lose their status as people and become passive vessels for state-administered rehabilitation, in return for the use of their bodies as generators of profit they will never see, then giving them any form of control over the terms of that exchange (or anything else that society may do for them or their families on the outside) becomes counterproductive.

I think that framing criminals, especially felons, as victims is a big mistake and will lead to incorrect conclusions. Some, maybe even most, felons--and I am talking about felons, not people convicted of misdemeanors--are dangerous people with sociopathic tendencies. Allowing them to vote en masse creates a voting bloc or special interest group which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but when you are discussing violent unrehabilitated persons, it is. When discussing rehabilitated felons, then it's a good thing to hear them out via The Vote on issues like prison reform, crime and punishment, and social issues as they will have a unique perspective that only convicts have experienced. But they have to prove themselves first because they showed evidence they are against human rights and humanity in general by their crimes--again, discussing what ought to be considered felonies, not necessarily what is right now.

 

[PyramidHead]

I asked a question that seems a reasonable POV: If you committed a serious crime against society, then your opinion probably shouldn't be trusted until such time as you are rehabilitated. So, in other words, maybe felons shouldn't be allowed to vote while in prison but after prison, they can vote? I also happen to think that universal right to vote is reasonable from an avoid-dictatorship perspective. I just don't have an extreme opinion one way or the other. Therefore, I didn't make a statement but instead a question.

As far as your question: I think the answer is for the same reason that the state has the power to decide capital punishment, whatever reason that is.

I agree, which is why I am opposed to capital punishment.

My question was also about felons in particular and crimes against society, not property damage or drug possession per se. I think that if a person is guilty of serious crimes against society such as murder, rape, or other extreme disrespect against persons, then it shows that the person ought not be trusted with other persons' welfare.

Well, extreme disrespect of the type you mention is on a steady decline and makes up a minority of the prison population in any event. But even if they didn't, I'm curious about your line of reasoning here. Do you think that someone who murders his spouse, if given the opportunity, would... vote for people who are pro-spousal murder? Like, there are so many ways to be a sociopath, and so many ways to have awful beliefs about other humans, and no convincing intersection between people who do and people who murder other humans. It's a bad proxy for whether or not someone should be trusted to provide their vote about how to best manage general welfare. Who is more likely to vote against the welfare of the majority of people, a white nationalist sitting on a pile of YouTube cash, or a woman convicted of murder for killing someone as revenge for infidelity? I'm not saying either of them are ideal, but I'm wondering why the murder committed by the second makes her particularly or uniquely unfit to vote, as opposed to the selfishness and bigotry of the first.

Murder and rape often happen in moments of passion, and don't usually happen to people who are strangers to the perpetrator. It's not like people who commit these crimes start by thinking, "You know, I disagree with the concept of inalienable rights and actually think it's okay to deprive people of life, liberty, and happiness as a general principle, and after I'm done acting on this carefully considered philosophical point I shall take steps to enact it nationwide!"

My question didn't have to do with the state being allowed to make an arbitrary decision about not voting but instead one that makes sense where extreme abuse/crimes against society are forfeiture of right to being included in society positively until such time as positive participation in society is demonstrated thru rehabilitative evidence. For your example, I don't think possession of marijuana in any way is related to the ability to going to war against Iran, but I do think that lack of respect for limb and life is related. Basic property damage and possession of marijuana ought NOT be felonies in the first place. Selling crack or destroying a city bus with people inside seem different and indicative of a serious problem, needing rehabilitation.

What I'm hoping to impress upon you here is that disrespect for life and limb is something we regularly permit in our armed forces and police, and nobody questions their voting privileges. Same goes for the deaths and loss of livelihood caused by the bankers and insurance companies who profit from the desperation of the poor. I know you're not in favor of the influence they have on our elections, but I doubt you'd be in favor of taking away their right to vote. I think the reason is that you accept, at least provisionally, the verdicts rendered by our justice system to place crack dealers in a separate category from pharma CEOs, and I don't.

I think that framing criminals, especially felons, as victims is a big mistake and will lead to incorrect conclusions. Some, maybe even most, felons--and I am talking about felons, not people convicted of misdemeanors--are dangerous people with sociopathic tendencies. Allowing them to vote en masse creates a voting bloc or special interest group which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but when you are discussing violent unrehabilitated persons, it is. When discussing rehabilitated felons, then it's a good thing to hear them out via The Vote on issues like prison reform, crime and punishment, and social issues as they will have a unique perspective that only convicts have experienced. But they have to prove themselves first because they showed evidence they are against human rights and humanity in general by their crimes--again, discussing what ought to be considered felonies, not necessarily what is right now.

Do you have a source for the statistic about felons being "dangerous people with sociopathic tendencies"? And, to reiterate, how does this population and its likely voting behavior compare to people who join the police force or army as outlets for their desire to harm others? What about people who own payday lending companies, who literally thrive on duping people out of money in their panic? I don't think felons are significantly different in any quantifiable or even likely way from those who engage in state-permitted forms of brutality and disregard for other humans, which leads me to believe the state's application of an exclusionary label on the ones who are disproportionately poor and/or minorities cannot be given a pass.