Now see... the marijuana point is fundementaly irrelevant. What you think should be legal and illegal is not the point. What currently IS legal and illegal is what matters. Taking your example to an extreme, is murder any less bad because the murderer beleives it shouldn't be illegal?

Yes thats an very harsh extreme but you really have to take it to the extreme. Its an all or nothing issue. You commit a crime, your a criminal. Period. Don't like a law? Push to get it changed, but if you break that law BEFORE you get it changed you deserve punishment.

Now as for prisoners not being allowed to vote... I have to say thta my instinct is to agree with it. As someone in jail, a convicted felon, you've removed yourself from functioning society. You've broken society's laws... tough nuts, man. You knew what you were doing was illegal, if you dont like the consequences, dont do it.

However, it becomes less clear when we think about the fact that our justice system isn't perfect. That soemtimes innocent people are jailed and thus not allowed to vote. Unfortunatly a perfect justice system is impossible. Never will happen. SO, as horrible as it sounds, I gotta say... thats the sacrfice we make for society..

The important thing, and the point of this thread I thought, is that we need to make sure the system works so that everyone (and by that I mean EVERYONE) gets the right to vote restored upon finishign their sentence.

Not a big fan of Martin Luther King, Jr., I take it? Or Mahatma Ghandi?

Sometimes the prevailing system is so entrenched that it can only be changed by breaking the law.

edited for spelling

lets leave aside the part about deserving punishment then.

Those who engage in civil disobedience accept the consequences of their disobedience.

A lot of them try to get themselves thrown in jail.

Sometimes consequences might be losing the right to vote.

But if you did give prisoners the right to vote, what happens in the case where the outnumber the rest of the citizens in a town?

They might vote for things that benefit themselves to the detriment of the townsfolk.

Let them vote absentee, then. Of course, it would serve those towns right if the prisoners they count when it's time to ask for government funds and government representation suddenly counted when it was time to spend those funds and pick that representation.

And if more than half your population is in jail, that would be better than the townsfolk voting for things that benefit themselves to the detriment of the prisoners. But any system which incarcerates more people than not is already broken.

Ouch. I conceed the point. I'll drop the word 'deserve'. However, they still shouldn't be surprised if they receive consequences for their actions. There actions may have been just, but unfortunatly justice and the law rarely are in alignment.

No, the point of this thread was my assertion that prisoners should be allowed to vote whilst still in jail.

Leo - Sluggyfesti was referring to the curious system the US has whereby prisoners count as part of the population of where the prison is; meaning sparesly populated rural areas get federal money as if they were a bustling metropolis and are overrepresented in proportion to population; not a community actually locking up the majority of it's citizens. As Were said, however, the problem is solved simply by letting their votes count back home instead.

Dionysius - they have recieved consewqeunces for their actions. They're in jail. If people can be locked up for something unjustly; and then lose the right to vote; why should anyone ever bother correcting this injustice? After all - everyone who cares is in jail and so can't vote..

Hmm. The problem with this sort of situation is the prisoners are still going to rely on local services. That sort of area, for instance, has to provide water and sewage systems for a much larger number of people than a normal rural area. And if prisoners are going to be the main users of such systems, shouldn't they have a say in whether they're developed?

With that logic you should also give soldiers in army bases local voting rights, they can even use more of the local infrastructure since they may get out occasionally.

Also people who move in to work from surrounding areas do at least party rely on local infrastructure like roads and propably public transport.

Treating prisoners as one of thoose seems only consistent.

My scenarios may be fantastic, but if you gave prisoners local voting rights and they outnumbered the small town they were in, then they could effectively hold the town hostage by passing laws that don't affect them.

One small example would be to make the speed limit 3 mph, and make the fines for exceeding the limit exorbitant.

Of course, they probably would not be enforced even if this were possible, but then you could come up with problems if local laws were selectively enforced.

I was unaware that voters could pass laws.

is that an h or an n in that name?

Voters in some states seem to be able to propisition. However on a state wide level locations such as Montana or Nebraska may be the only ones affected if it applied there.

And by electing politicians that support a platform, voters can indeed be the cause of a law passage even if they don't do it directly.

Plenty of people don;t vote where they actually live and use services (though I've never quite understood why). Our house is in the North-West region, but in the European elections our vote was split between North-West, Eastern and Northern Ireland. So prisoners voting while they're not actually there wouldn't be a major change.

The only problem with this is lifers with no possibility of parole. They're never going back home; it's not really fair to let them vote there.

If prisoners did vote in the prison state, it doesn't mean they can force through laws. It's not as if you're giving one person lots of votes. They are not all going to agree. And besides; who would stand up as a candidate promuising to make the speeding limit 3 mph. And why in the hell would every prisoner deicde to vote for them? It's an absolutely ridiculous concept.