Former Prisoners Should Rejoin Society -- But Not Vote?

People who have served time for a criminal offense have certain obligations to society once they are released. Responsible citizens find jobs, provide for their families, pay taxes and involve themselves in the governance of their communities and country -- right?

But practically all states strip convicts of the right to vote after conviction, and many fail to restore the right once an offender has served time. Indeed, more than 4 million ex-offenders are disenfranchised in this country, the majority of whom are black. The result? Minority communities are under-represented in many municipal, state and national elections.

It's a founding principle of our democracy that people should have a voice in determining who their representatives are, and in shaping the laws by which we are governed. We violate this principle when we deny people the right to vote.

Why do we have such laws? An editorial in the New York Times this week notes that the original intent behind felon disenfranchisement was to subjugate freed slaves after the Civil War. In fact, President Andrew Johnson's amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865 also disenfranchised former members of the Confederate Army, as well as those who owned valuable real estate. President Johnson's purpose seems to have been to disempower the antebellum aristocracy. But when federal troops were withdrawn from the South around 1877, Reconstruction ended. White rule was re-instituted and blacks -- though no longer slaves -- were again deprived of many civil liberties and civil rights, including the right to vote.

How ironic that some 233 years later, and 46 years after the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race), an overwhelming number of blacks continue to be deprived of the right to vote. (The fact that blacks comprise a grossly disproportionate number of incarcerated people in this country may suggest a similar irony -- and share similar causes.)

When our goal should be rehabilitating and reintegrating criminal offenders, what conceivable interests are served by denying ex-offenders -- or even prisoners -- the right to vote? Who gains from policies that disenfranchise so many of our citizens? Don't the responsibilities of citizenship encompass involvement in the political life of our nation? Shouldn't we be encouraging people to engage in the political process so that our democracy more closely reflects the beliefs and ideals of our people?

To keep faith with the principles of our forebears, it's long past time the franchise was extended to all our citizens.

Photo Credit: KAHH