Post Correctional Suffrage

Travis Bauer

The history of voting rights in the United States has been a long and arduous journey. It has been a progression from very limited few to the many. Over several hundred years we have continued to expand our views of citizenship and extended the right of voting to ever more people of every sex, race, creed, and socio-economic standing. While attitudes have changed over the centuries in regards to what constitutes a citizen, a proper vote, or even a civil right the issue has been rarely addressed as to whether the act of voting is truly a right or a privilege. Perhaps it is because of this vagueness that even today we continue to deny the ability to vote to millions of people. We rescind the right previously held by an individual and in many states the person may never be allowed to cast a ballot again (Mauer, 3-6).

The very idea of denying the right to vote to a citizen may sound ludicrous, but this is exactly what occurs all across the country every day for those who have ever been convicted of felonious crimes. In almost every state in the union a person who has been convicted of a felony is denied the right to vote even after their sentence is served and they are returned to society, many states deny the right to vote to these people while they are on parole or probation, and some ban voting rights for life. It is essential to American democracy today that no able minded citizen be denied their basic democratic rights to vote. This abridgement of a fundamental right of all Americans is like that of many minority groups that have had to fight for their civil rights and civil liberties. Furthermore it is a struggle against those who insist that voting is merely a privilege to be given or taken against one’s will and not the right of all Americans.

It is held by proponents of these disenfranchisement laws that voting is a privilege of the law abiding citizens and that it is not to be awarded to those who have broken the law. They speak of a “social compact” which all Americans must abide by and felons have failed to do. It is true that many feel this way and that in many cases criminals have disregarded the law when committing an alleged crime, however in a rule by law democracy such as ours it is important to remember that laws are not set in stone. In fact it is an inherent aspect within our system that our laws are ever changing, malleable, and avoidable. What is illegal today may not be tomorrow and vice versa, and although it is the encouraged belief that laws are set in stone the truth is that they are not, and if a person does not like a law they can and should try to change it. This “social compact” is an outdated term from obsolete governmental and social systems that does not apply to a “rule by law” nation. As our view of crimes change, so should our view of criminals.

There is also the question as to whether prison is an institution of punishment or of rehabilitative correction. While one could argue this ad nauseaum, the reality in practice is that it is both, but at what point do we consider the debt paid? To conservatives and proponents of disenfranchisement the debt is never fully repaid and the loss of voting rights is just another remainder that they should not have broken the law; it is a factor that the felon should have taken into account before committing the crime. This argument is a shallow justification for the belief though and is not a reason of its own. It is only logical and reasonable to deduce that if the person is determined to have served their time, then they have done just that. If it is the general belief that a criminal’s punishment is never over then the justice system would reflect such with life sentences abound. A person is released because it is believed that they have done their time, changed, and can once again become a productive member of society. If it is believed that an individual cannot do so the individual is not released. Furthermore, reintegrating the disenfranchised back into mainstream society includes returning their right to vote, which in itself is a civic duty.

The United States current has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, even above that of China. With 7 million people incarcerated, on probation, or on parole it is becoming ever more difficult to ignore the magnitude of this issue. 2.2 million people are currently behind bars and although the United States represents only five percent of the world’s population, our prison population represents twenty five percent of the entire world incarcerated population (“Prisons,” 28-33). With current and former felons banned from the democratic process the government has repossessed the voting rights of millions and has effectively manipulated the voting process, gaining control over the vote, the people, and the nation.

Most important to this issue is what it means to be an American citizen. This in itself can become a very heated debate, but we need not even address it directly. Let us assume that we all agree on who is an American citizen and why, and focus not on what that entails specifically, but instead focus on who we want to be as a people and a nation; that we strive for excellence and perfection. We must not concern ourselves with the best way to punish or how long a grudge can be held. American ideals have held that we should strive to be the free, democratic society that we fancy ourselves to be. We like to view our nation as an ideal, but then we forget those ideals that we have always held so dear. Ex-felons are taxed without representation, bear a scarlet letter, are denied land, employment, must be registered, and a plethora of other penalties that are burdened upon a group that is said to have paid their dues. We talk of freedom, democracy, and justice yet deny our brethren their basic democratic right to vote. We must not only be the change we wish to see in the world, we must also be the nation we pride ourselves on being.

Works Cited

Allen, Jessie. "Locking out the vote." American Lawyer. April 2003: 13 Pars. General OneFile. Gale. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 31 Aug. 2007

<http://envoy.lcc.edu:2067/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=ITOF&docId=A100049052&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=lom_lansingcc&version=1.0>.

Mauer, Marc, and Roger Clegg. "Once a criminal, never a voter?" New York Times Upfront. Sept 6, 2002: 29 Pars. General OneFile. Gale. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 31 Aug. 2007 <http://envoy.lcc.edu:2067/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=ITOF&docId=A99236501&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=lom_lansingcc&version=1.0>.

“Disenfranchisement of Felons.” Issues & Controversies On File 29 Dec. 2006. Issues & Controversies @ FACTS.com. Facts On File News Services. 28 Aug. 2007 http://www.2facts.com

"Jailhouse vote; Prisons. " The Economist (US). July 9, 2005: 6 Pars. US. General OneFile. Gale. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 31 Aug. 2007

<http://envoy.lcc.edu:2067/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T003&prodId=ITOF&docId=A133883329&source=gale&srcprod=ITOF&userGroupName=lom_lansingcc&version=1.0>.

"Prisons in the United States." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 12 Sep 2007 45 Pars. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 12 Sep 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prisons_in_the_United_States&oldid=157268018>.