A Stitch in Haste

I'm sorry, but I refuse to get excited about the fact that felons can't vote:

On Election Day it will not matter to some 4.7 million Americans whether they are Republicans, Democrats, independents or whether they have an opinion on anything at all. Under various state laws, they are barred from voting because they have felony records. This includes not just prison inmates (48 states), parolees (33 states) and probationers (29 states) but also a large number of people -- one third of the disenfranchised in all -- who are off parole and "free." Minorities are hit particularly hard by these state laws: They deny 13 percent of African American men the vote.
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The 14th Amendment permits states to deny the vote "for participation in rebellion, or other crime." And it can be argued that prisoners should not vote; after all, the purpose of prison is to deny freedom. But with ex-cons, the argument shifts.
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Another bald fact: Many disenfranchisement laws trace to the mid-1800s, when they were crafted to bar blacks with even minor criminal records from polls. Today this poisonous legal lineage tells not only in the South, which retains the most repressive statutes, but in states such as New York, where ex-parolees theoretically get their rights back but in reality encounter local election officials who demand discharge papers that don't exist, give misleading information and find other reasons to turn them away. A class-action lawsuit in New York charges that this system bars so many voters in high-crime neighborhoods that the districts effectively have lost their voice. In Florida, where many felons are barred forever unless the governor personally decides otherwise, 8 percent of adults cannot vote -- including one in four black men.
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Voting is not a privilege; it is the basic right that defines a citizen. Those denied it are, in effect, stateless -- people without a country. This is not a partisan issue, but one of basic human rights. People who have paid their debt to society should have their rights restored.

Um, no.

It needs to be said: the best way to empower felons is by not being one of them. Of all the people one can have sympathy -- misplaced or otherwise -- toward, people are choosing felons?

With all due respect to Victor Hugo, the notion that there should always be a final, definitive cut-off point for punishment, that there should always be some clearly-drawn line beyond which lies total forgiveness and forgetfulness, simply has no basis either in the law or in common sense. Some punishments are and should be forever, and there is nothing intrinsic to the franchise to suggest that denying felons the vote cannot be one of those lifetime punishments.

I'm an attorney -- if I commit a great enough offense to my profession, then I can be disbarred for life. Same thing for my other day job as an investment banker -- a lifetime ban from the securities industry is an all too common event on Wall Street (for example, this guy). People lose drivers licenses and other permits for life in certain circumstances. Countries can refuse people entry for life. We even imprison people for life if the crime is terrible enough. So what's the big deal about denying felons the right to vote?

Voting "defines a citizen"? I thought obeying the law and respecting the rights of others defined citizenship. To deny felons the vote is to deny them their rights? Didn't the felons themselves violate somebody's rights somewhere along the way, and might not the victims be suffering for life? Can't there be some "debts to society" that can never be totally repaid?

Certainly there may be specific instances of inconsistency or inappropriateness or flat-out abuse in the application of franchise denial to felons. But as a basic legal, political and philosophical question, there is simply no rational basis to oppose denying felons the franchise.

It's definitely fair...and it's probably wise.

Whether your true motivation is partisan politics, racial activism or a genuine concern for felons qua felons, your energies are better directed elsewhere. There are people more deserving of your efforts and more in need of "empowerment."

More thoughts on the matter at NRO.

UPDATE: The issue lives on -- see .here

(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway).