Voters Right Act - Should Felons be allowed to vote?

[Temp name]

I thought voting was a right, enshrined in the US constitution? And yet you take away that right when they're locked up? Seems kinda ass-backwards to me, but okay.

But seriously, they absolutely should be allowed to vote. Even while in prison. The only reason you have to remove someone's right to vote is if they're incapable of making a rational decision due to not being able to properly process the information, like if they're children or mentally handicapped.

[Daelak]

The answer is simple... freedom and equality.

How is that any different than when people questioned whether minorities or women should be allowed to vote.

Ding ding ding. Spectral is doing what conservatives have done in this country for centuries, repackage the same shit under the veil of some sort of law and order or "right" in society.

[Jonnusthegreat]

There's lots of problems with voting in the US - this is pretty low on my wish list. No, they shouldn't get to vote, but I'm not campaigning or constantly debating this topic. Corporations also shouldn't get to vote (even though they are people).

[unfilteredJW]

If people were as concerned about disenfranchising right wingers as much as they are about disenfranchising felons in this thread, we wouldn't be seeing effectively 0% of republicans trusting the system today. Its quite interesting how people CAN learn the lesson but refuse to apply it where it is desperately needed.

When right wingers show the have been rehabilitated they can be treated the same as well.

[Egomaniac]

While a agree with this premise, you could extend it much further with people who are blatantly misinformed and vote against their own self interests, all while believing that they are helping themselves. Could one not argue that these people, while of sound mind, are incapable of making rational decisions due to not properly processing information?

I know I'm jumping down a rabbit hole here, and to actually take away somebody's right to vote requires medical justification, but humor me.

I see where your head is at here...but there is a difference between making a decision because you don't have all the information and making a decision because your brain can't process the information you do have properly.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

See, this is how wars start. You are seeing things from just one side. Look at both sides. Both sides, the democrats and republicans, are looking at the other side as racists and as outright EVIL. This isn't storytime. There aren't mustache-twirling villains. In the real world, both sides dig in to incompatible positions they are willing to fight and die for. You can sit there and say "the right wing feelings arent valid therefore war will not occur" but that's nonsense.

There have already been studies proving illegals are not impacting elections, there are no two sides in stuff like this just fact and fantasy and some ones wild fantasy doesn’t matter in the face of fact.

[Egomaniac]

Could refusing to acknowledge information and facts count as an inability to properly process?
(I know I'm out on a long and skinny branch here lol)

Refusal to acknowledge information that challenges ones point of view and inability to process information are still separate. There's an active mind behind that refusal.

[Egomaniac]

Ok ok I give up you're too strong with logic on your side

It's the thing that makes those types worse than crazy people. They have all the tools they need to make good decisions and simply refuse to do so.

[Ivanstone]

In the real world, both sides dig in to incompatible positions they are willing to fight and die for. You can sit there and say "the right wing feelings arent valid therefore war will not occur" but that's nonsense.

In the real world, one side lies about illegal immigrants voting. The other side is frequently the target of actual disenfranchisement by voter registration manipulation and gerrymandering.

[LilSaihah]

I'm sure there are some serious bullshit felonies around things like drug possession which would make absolutely no sense to restrict voting on the back of.

I can totally get it if you'd want to restrict the votes of murderers or rapists etc., I personally wouldn't feel particularly cut up if they couldn't vote. But it's kind of hard to tell whether someone should be able to decide who can and can't vote.

[Amerissis]

Yes, of course. Are they suddenly not citizens any more? Do politics not matter when you're a convicted felon? Deciding which citizen can vote and who can't is a very dangerous slippery slope. Why stop at felons, right? Maybe not let people without an education vote, or people from a certain neighborhood, or color, or people who like Nickelback, or...

What nonsense to bar anyone from voting.

Luckily I live in a free, democratic country where you can vote from prison (unless they didn't put a polling station in your facility, then you give someone the right to vote for you, because it's kind of hard to go outside and vote ).

[Temp name]

Could refusing to acknowledge information and facts count as an inability to properly process?
(I know I'm out on a long and skinny branch here lol)

While a agree with this premise, you could extend it much further with people who are blatantly misinformed and vote against their own self interests, all while believing that they are helping themselves. Could one not argue that these people, while of sound mind, are incapable of making rational decisions due to not properly processing information?

I know I'm jumping down a rabbit hole here, and to actually take away somebody's right to vote requires medical justification, but humor me.

Egomaniac kinda defended me there.. But yeah, there's a difference between someone who can but refuses to, and someone who can't make rational decisions. My point was more targeted towards people like those heavily suffering from schizophrenia who aren't sure what information they absorb is correct and what isn't, or those without the mental capacity to process information, like those suffering from heavy autism or any of the dozens of other similar mental illnesses.

- - - Updated - - -

Luckily I live in a free, democratic country where you can vote from prison (unless they didn't put a polling station in your facility, then you give someone the right to vote for you, because it's kind of hard to go outside and vote ).

Or you can do a postal vote, I assume?

[Amerissis]

Or you can do a postal vote, I assume?

No, that's only for citizens residing abroad. They can get leave of absence to go vote, though (obviously only in very specific cases). They can even run for office, but if they get elected they have the problem of not being able to physically take office. So not sure how they handle that.

[Draeth]

It is absolutely not that hard to be convicted of a felony. Felon disenfranchisement is used in combination with heavily biased law enforcement and statutes that target minorities to disenfranchise already oppressed groups. In the same way that the justice system has been perverted to replace slave labor with forced prison labor, it has been perverted to replace black disenfranchisement with felon disenfranchisement.

The only real difference is that anyone can become a felon without doing anything wrong if someone in power decides to paint a target on you.

[Deletedaccount1]

It is absolutely not that hard to be convicted of a felony. Felon disenfranchisement is used in combination with heavily biased law enforcement and statutes that target minorities to disenfranchise already oppressed groups. In the same way that the justice system has been perverted to replace slave labor with forced prison labor, it has been perverted to replace black disenfranchisement with felon disenfranchisement.

The only real difference is that anyone can become a felon without doing anything wrong if someone in power decides to paint a target on you.

It's also not that hard to commit a felony but that doesn't mean felons should be treated lightly. Your thesis is laughable in general though. The idea that the trivial labor they give prisoners to keep them busy is anything near the economic machine that slavery used to be is nothing more than shallow rhetoric that doesn't conform to reality.

The fact that there are people powerful enough to frame you for a crime doesn't mean that is something that is likely to happen or that it accounts for a significant amount of felony cases. The fact is, most felons have committed serious crimes that have harmed other people and many of them are violent and will do it again if they aren't stopped.

Felons regaining the right to vote should be decided on a case-by-case basis because rapists, murderers, thieves, kidnappers, pedophiles, drug traffickers, forgers, and every other scumbag who accounts for most of the felon prison population have forfeited their right to be free citizens which would include their right to vote.

[Dsonsion]

I just checked the list of US felonies and it's just ridiculous that for some of those you could lose the right to vote.

[jeezusisacasual]

It is very simple, are those in prison Americans? If so then they should be allowed to vote. It really comes down down to that, you should not be stained for the rest of your life over a mistake made at a earlier point in your life.

[Masark]

I thought voting was a right, enshrined in the US constitution?

Nope, there is not an affirmative right to vote in the US Constitution. There are several "Can't be denied the vote because X" amendments (race (15th), sex (19th), failure to pay tax (24th), age over 18 (26th)), but nothing actually states that citizens have the right to vote.

[Flutterguy]

IF they should be allowed to vote, they should also be allowed to own firearms.

[NM 156]

I know some states have paths for felons to regain rights to own a gun, and I'm okay with that if it is done very carefully. I would also be okay with a path to regain voting rights after release.