September 17, 2004
WANT TO VOTE FOR THE LAWMAKERS? OBEY THE LAW:
How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy (BRENT STAPLES, 9/17/04, NY Times)
Pundits blame apathy for the decline in voter turnout that has become a fact of life in the United States in the last several decades. But not everyone who skips the polls on Election Day does so by choice. This November, for example, an estimated five million people - roughly 2.3 percent of the number of people eligible to vote - will be barred from voting by state laws that strip convicted felons of the franchise, often temporarily but sometimes for life.These laws cast a permanent shadow over the poor minority communities where disenfranchised people typically live. Children grow up with the unfortunate example of neighbors, parents and grandparents who never vote and never engage in the political process, even superficially.
As a consequence, the struggling communities that need political leadership most of all are trapped within a posture of disengagement that deepens from one generation to the next.
While many things will need to change before the country can reinvigorate the electorate, doing away with postprison sanctions - the most punitive in the democratic world - has to be near the top of the list. [...]
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are rushing to associate themselves with a campaign to restore the vote to former felons. The general public, however, understands clearly that the right to vote is a basic human right. Restoring voting rights to former felons would move the United States closer to its peers in the democratic world - and closer to its founding ideals.
The notion that the Founders--who enfranchised perhaps a a sixth of the population?--considered voting to be a basic human right is lunatic--the idea that we should become more like Europe asinine. At a minimum the vote should be reserved for those who fulfill their responsibilities as citizens, which felons have conspicuously failed to do. States might choose to restore the vote to them if they demonstrate that they're reformed and have become responsible citizens, but are under no obligation to do so. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 17, 2004 9:54 AM
I recall WF Buckley's column when Ireland allowed those in mental institutions to vote. Funny. I would think that restoring the vote to those who finish probation or go a certain number of years without a violation would make some sense, but given the recidivist rate, immediate restoration is nuts.
Posted by: Jeff at September 17, 2004 10:01 AMIt's a state issue. oj- Are you re-thinking your views regarding the original meaning of federalism? Good for you!
The Times worships at the altar of "democracy", as long as it produces what the founders warned against, "the levelling spirit" or what we call socialism/statism. Why not enfranchise dependant, marginal characters if that's your goal? Do away with the electoral college as well... The Times is an intellectual joke.
Posted by: Tom C, Stamford,Ct. at September 17, 2004 10:21 AMRobert Heinlein had an interesting position on the voting franchise. Starship Troopers makes an honest argument about limited franchise based on defense of the State.
Posted by: Pilgrim at September 17, 2004 10:41 AMEveryone who has the right to vote should also have the right to keep and bear arms. That would soon give a reasonable scope to the franchise.
Posted by: pj at September 17, 2004 11:21 AMOther than excluding women and blacks from voting, what other restrictions on voting did the Founders leave in place?
Curious.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at September 17, 2004 11:52 AMAli:
Since they didn't remove any restrictions they left in place property requirements, age restrictions, religious tests, etc.
Posted by: oj at September 17, 2004 12:02 PMRe you sure about religious tests?
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at September 17, 2004 12:30 PMAli:
" The churches of Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut were established churches. That is, the residents of the colonies were taxed to pay for their upkeep and for the salaries of ministers. It did not matter whether they were members of a church not. It did not matter whether they wanted to be members of some other kind of church, for during the first decades of settlement no other church was allowed. Only male church members could vote in civil elections, and the law required everyone to attend the local church chartered by the civil government."
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0OBW/is_10_41/ai_98828383
Posted by: oj at September 17, 2004 12:38 PMLeftists and Democrats are upset because felons can't vote. This is right out Gulag Archipelago, wherein Solzhenitszsn wrote of the Communists' referring to criminals as "socially friendly elements," "Tell me who your friends are. . .."
Posted by: Lou Gots at September 17, 2004 12:47 PMYou go too far, Orrrin.
Ideas do have consequences, and the idea of any citizen voting does imply every citizen voting, absent some disabling cause -- like committing felonies.
We don't compel people to attend church with whips any more.
I dunno if not noticing your neighbors vote is necessarily such a powerful example. They get to watch their neighbors suppurating from injectable drug abscesses, and that doesn't seem to affect them much
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 17, 2004 3:18 PMPilgrim:
The gov't agency of 'Starship Troopers was the military, Americorps, and the Peace Corps all rolled into one.
It wasn't just defense, although that was the focus of the book. Anyone, of any ability, had the right to join, and could not be refused.
Harry:
Your last point is well made, but it's also true that without any example of a given behavior, there will be less of that behavior. That's the insight behind "broken window" policing theories.
Low-income inner-city populations won't suddenly have 100% voting participation if they observe people routinely voting, but without a model, only an extraordinary few will vote.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 17, 2004 8:10 PMOf course, but what do you want to fix, the reason they can't vote or the fact that they can't vote?
Ken Auletta, in "The Underclass," had one of the most revealing anecdotes I've ever read.
He asked a teenage girl in, I think it was was, Bedford-Stuyvesant, what she aspired to.
She wanted to be a counselor.
Well, of course, that was the only kind of career she'd ever observed anybody working at.
There was a real, underlying problem there, but hiring her as a counselor wouldn't have been the solution.
Restoring the vote to people who have thrown it away doesn't solve anything.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 17, 2004 8:36 PMTheir parents threw it away.
If we don't believe that we can change hearts and minds, save some people, then why have counselors at all ?
Why even welfare, if they're just going to churn out more non-functional people ?
I don't want to give up on people; let those who can be saved, be saved.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 18, 2004 6:36 AMOf course. But why would giving antisocial misfits a voice in government help?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 18, 2004 11:24 PM