Does a person who’s committed a crime get the same Constitutional voting rights as a person who has followed all the laws? As of 2016, prisoners who’ve finished their sentences are allowed to vote. If the convict is on probation or parole, they are not allowed to vote. (www. aclu. org) There are only two states that allow prisoners to vote. If they are a citizen of Maine and Vermont, while behind bars, the convicts have the right to vote in the elections. There are about 5. 85 million Americans, 2. 5% of the voting population in the US are prisoners. After finishing their time, convicts will be released back into society.
It is against the Constitution to restrict the voting rights of prisoners and the convicts opinion shall be appreciated even when not used. Prisoners contribute useful tips into society. Thus, prisoners should be allowed to vote. If prisoners were not allowed to vote while in prison and be trusted to make right decisions on deciding on leaders, it will lead to them ending back into prison. A realization will come into play when the convicts are released back into society. Prisoners should have a right to who runs their country, governments, states, etc. because they will soon have to enter the real world outside a jail cell. The Daily Take Team stated, “At some point, most felons will leave prison and re-enter everyday society. As we prepare them for everyday life outside of a prison cell or a jail-yard, we have to make them feel like they’re an essential part of the community before letting them free.
When prisoners can vote while behind bars, that’s one more reason for them to feel like they’re still part of the outside world and one less reason for them to feel alienated and break the law again. ” When the prisoners ecome ex-convicts in the general public, voting is an essential gesture for the government. If they are able to be educated on what’s going on outside of prison, they will be able to adapt back into the real world. To add, the prisoners would feel trapped as they wouldn’t have any access to the outside world. Steve Chapman once stated, “We let ex-convicts marry, reproduce, buy beer, own property and drive. They don’t lose their freedom of religion, their right against self-incrimination or their right not to have soldiers quartered in their homes in time of war.
But in many places, the assumption is that they can’t be trusted to help choose our leaders… If we thought criminals could never be reformed, we wouldn’t let them out of prison in the first place. ” He establishes that prisoners are allowed to have their rights when they have left prison. The voting right to a human being should never be taken away. The United States has more prisoners than any other country in the world. Due to this many imprisoned voters, that would be 2. 5% of the nation’s voting population.
By granting prisoners the privilege to vote, this will lead to better decisions in society when they are released. In the U. S Constitution the eighth and ninth Amendments and the Government laws make dignifying points as to how every U. S. citizen is created equal and how they should all be eligible to have the same rights. The 8th Amendment explains, “succinctly prohibits ‘excessive’ sanctions,’ and demands that ‘punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to the offense’… Thus, the states that continue to exclude all felons permanently are outliers, both within the United States and in the world.
In other words, felons should be allowed the righteousness to have legal abilities depending on their sentencing, which includes voting rights. The ninth Amendment explains how citizens are not allowed to deny another person’s rights, including their voting rights, leading to the prisoners being able to have an opinion on the elections. The 9th Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. ”
In the U. S. Voting Rights from 1965 it claims, “It is plain to anyone reading the Voting Rights Act that it applies to all ‘voting qualification[s]. ‘ And it is equally plain that [New York Election Law] § 5-106 [which denies the vote to incarcerated felons and felons on parole] disqualifies a group of people from voting. These two propositions should constitute the entirety of our analysis. Section 2 of the Act by its unambiguous terms subjects felony disenfranchisement and all other voting qualifications to its coverage. In other words, felons or felons with parole were not included in voting, until it become a necessity for the prisoners to have an impact on society.
There are certain sections of the constitution that state that overseers of felons will not restrict prisoners to during the elections, for example, “There are three potential constitutional bases for Congress’s authority to enfranchise non-incarcerated offenders for federal elections : Congress’s supervisory power over federal elections, rooted in Article 1, Sec. ; – Congress’s enforcement power under Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Congress’s enforcement power under Section Two of the Fifteenth Amendment. ” Throughout the U. S. Constitution and the government laws, it is essentially saying that it is illegal for any being to deny another person’s right to vote. Knowing that prisoners make up 2. 5% of the US voting population, they are an important contribution to society. The elections are about the whole state, government & nation coming together and deciding on a leader.
The Daily Take Team stated, “If we want everybody involved in our democracy, then everybody should be able to vote. ” Our democracy should be made up of 100% of our nation. This is not doable without prisoners. If they were educated enough about the nation’s government, they would be a powerful pact in the elections. Mandeep Dhami stated, “The argument that allowing prisoners to vote would be costly and impractical is ethically unjustifiable. Similarly, the fact that prisoners lose many freedoms does not imply they should lose all their civil rights. Denying the prisoners right to vote in elections is breaking the law. Allowing them to vote will let them build social abilities for in/out of prison. The Daily Take Team declared, ‘We gave the right to vote to all these groups because the more people that participate in the democratic process, the better it is for our nation.
We gave them the right to vote because we believe that oups contribute something essential to society and that everyone benefits from their participation. In the United States, people are classified into groups. Every group is essential to this society. Some groups lead the government to rule out the laws. Importantly, convicts have a critical impact our nation, especially when choosing a leader. Knowing this material, prisoners make an important contribution into society. The question of whether or not prisoners should be allowed to vote is a controversial topic. In the opinion of many it is an essential concept for prisoners to be allowed to vote.
If felons are allowed to vote, while in jail it can help them stay active participants with what is going on in politics, and society, and this will help them when they are released because they will know everything that has happened. In the eighth and ninth amendment and the government laws, in substance, state that it is illegal to deny prisoner their right to vote. Not many U. S. citizens vote, when they are allowed the right to, if prisoners were allowed to vote, there would be more contributions to the polls. Convicted felons should be allowed the right to vote, along with every other American citizen.
