I was reading a copy of the Daily Mail in the pub the other day (for those who don't know; the Mail is our mass circulation fascist daily), and came acoss an outraged article about Charles Kennedy's plans to give the vote to prisoners serving time.

Now I was outraged myself at this article, for two reasons. Firstly, the Mail's usual fascistic reporting style; and secondly because until that point I believed prisoners did have the vote.

Turns out the vote was removed from prisoners as a concession to Tories when we outlawed deporting convicts to Australia and the New World, and the law was then confirmed by the Thatcher governement in 1983 (mostly because they were fully aware roughly 90% of the prison populaiton would vote against them - same reason they tried to use the poll tax to stop poor people voting). Now, I don't see how denying the vote to prisoners is at all legal under the Human Rights Act, or at all ethical in a democratic society. Robbing someone's house, being caught in possession of pills or even raping and murdering someone does not stop someone being a citizen, nor does it remove their right to participate in the governance of the country. We've finally passed laws allowing the homeless and mental patients to vote; how can we justify continuing to deny the right to prisoners?

Heh, funnily enough I hadn't realised that it had been that recent; I just assumed they never had the vote.

In all honesty, I don't feel particularly strongly about it either way. I never really had a problem with prisoners being denied the vote, but at the same time I can't think of a good justification why they shouldn't vote, so I'd be perfectly happy to see it restored.

Here in the states we've generally never allowed convicts the vote; the franchise was just one of the civil rights you lost upon conviction (we don't let them have guns, either). Generally, the idea was that when you finished serving your debt to society, you got the vote back.

Of course, now there's a lot of partisan nonsense attached to the whole issue of getting the vote back afterwards; because the GOP doesn't want to give the vote back to black ex-cons (they aren't a Republican crowd), while they look much more kindly on re-enfranchising ex-cons from ethnic groups who tend to vote Republican. It makes for messy public policy, to say the least...still, many states do simply allow ex-cons to enroll again and be done with it.

Bull

And what part of that proves me wrong? Looks to me like the Monitor is endorsing what I said, not contradicting it.

proofplz kthx.

I'm in a really bad mood now; partly becuse I'm on the worse bit of my comedown; but more importantly because I've just been arguing with a bunch of mates who refused to condemn the idea of denying prisoners the vote. None of them are particularly right-wing, and all of them have comitted offences deservig jail time, which failed to sway any of them. Bah.

No-one supported denying the vote to ex-felons, however. The US is a screwed-up country.

Well, you could follow Omnitasers's link; or read how Florida was willing to let Hispanic felons vote while making it almost impossible for blacks who had served their terms to get the `right' to vote back.

It's the same BS Florida did back in 2000, when any black citizen with the same last name as a black felon (from anywhere in the country) was struck from the voter rolls, even if no other bit of information matched; while whites were only struck if every bit of information matched between the Florida penal database and the voter rolls (thus deliberately allowing white felons to vote, while purging law abiding blacks).

"The Revolutionary Worker" is hardly a credible source of information. Starting right off with the claim that there was never a recount in Florida is hardly a good way to suggest that you're not just shooting off conspiracy theories.

The Times article is just unclear. The state's not using that list any more, right? Hardly sounds like a conspiracy if they're admitting mistakes and fixing them. How exactly is there a Hispanic "category" in the felons list? Does that mean that under the old system, hispanics who were convicted couldn't be put on this list? But later it clearly says that there were indeed hispanics on the list, though only 61 of them. Wasn't that supposed to be impossible?

There were tremendous flaws with the purge. That much is clear. However, in a state with a disproportionate number of minorities among felons, if you purge people from the voter rolls based on whether they're felons, it stands to reason that you'll purge a disproportionate number of minorities.

Would you be so kind as to explain exactly how Omnitaser's link, which doesn't mention race even once, supports your position?

If you're trying to prove that there's a deliberate Republican conspiracy to disenfranchise minorities, you're going to have to do better than that.

Deliberate policy, maybe not. Corrupt manipulation, probably.

We know that minorities are disproportionately convicted of crimes, so you would expect a large numbers of blacks and hispanics to be on the list. But how is it that there were several thousand Blacks and only 61 Hispanics? Don't tell me that there are no Hispanic criminals in Florida.

It is a curious coincidence though, that Black people tend to lean Democratic, but Hispanics in Florida tend to lean Republican mostly because the Republicans are tougher on Cuba.

And if it was a perfectly innocent mistake, why did the state of Florida put up so much resistance to reporters' attempts to see the list? As I remember, they had to be ordered to release it by a judge. I'll find a link when I have the time. I'm at work now.

From Omnitaser's link:

The laggard states' policies have been challenged by critics who see them as a form of racial politics. (One of six African-Americans in Florida can't vote because of a prior felony conviction.)



Fixing it, after the election, after they got found out. Seems a little dubious to me.

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My opinion on the issue? I really don't give a crap whether inmates can vote or not, but they should be able to vote as soon as they get out.

Austrias policy is that if they are convicted for 4 years or more they can't vote. That is i suppose to prevent awkward problems like people being convicted for a week 2 days before elections. I have at the moment no idea how paroles fit in there.

I have no problem with denying prisoners who did something serious the right to vote. It should not apply to minor offences and i might disagree weather something is a major offence or any offence at all (like in some drug related charges) but i am not in against the principle.

I also strongly disagree to deny ex felons votes. Anything that brands them for life makes rehabilitation harder and if you let them go you should make rehabilitation as easy as possible.

What it shows is that rather than being a vast GOP conspiracy, is that it's a state law issue, with a large majority of the states (35 out of 50) granting voting rights immediately to former felons.

And yet, all 15 are red states.

Which means 19 blue states, and 16 red states currently restore voting rights to ex-felons. It "proves" nothing.