Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont submitted the legislation, named the Inclusive Democracy Act, on Tuesday which would guarantee the right to vote in federal elections for all citizens regardless of their criminal record.
In a statement, Pressley said the legislation was necessary due to policies and court rulings that “continue to disenfranchise voters from all walks of life — including by gutting the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering, cuts to early voting, and more.” Welch called the bill necessary due to “antiquated state felony disenfranchisement laws.”
In late 2022, approximately 4.6 million people were unable to vote due to a felony conviction, according to a study by the Sentencing Project, a nonpartisan research group. The same study found that Black and Hispanic citizens are disproportionately likely to be disenfranchised due to felony
If the person has paid by doing their sentence and are in good faith trying to integrate into society, they should be able to vote.
Except traitors and or domestic terrorists, they can go fuck themselves.
Honestly even those should be able to vote. If there are enough to actually win an election, then the area in question has a problem regardless, and if not, then the only actually consequencential effect of forbidding it would be that unscrupulous political groups could try and declare their enemies traitorous to try to disenfranchise them.
No taxation without representation.
Even people in jail should be allowed to vote. Wtf!
What third world shit is that? You can’t vote if you’ve been convicted of a felony? That’s some medieval thinking right there, god the US is a hopeless barbaric mess only thinly disguised as a democracy.
It gets worse. Many of the felony disenfranchisement laws originate from the civil war era. Combine that with the 13th amendment still allowing slavery as a punishment for crime and you can take a guess who was overwhelmingly targeted.
13th amusement
This sounds like fun.
You can run for president but you can’t vote
Yes you fucking can, in fact, voting rights is just about the easiest right to restore once your off paper and paid all your restitution and fines. (Which can be goddam hard. But it is doable.)
Source; I’m an ex fucking convict lol. I’ll have my gun rights back next year if all goes well.
This depends on the state.
Some states automatically let you vote.
A few wouldn’t let you vote at all.
What rational argument is there for citizens to lose their right to vote?
Say you lose your right to vote over possession of drugs. Why? You shouldn’t you have representation?
While in prison you become slave labor. For profit prisons get money for housing and feeding you. They get money from the contracted work you do. They double and triple dip profits. There’s all kinds of under the table deals being done on your back. But why did you lose your right to vote? It all goes back to controlling certain groups of the population. That’s where it started, that’s where it still is. Sure, restrict gun ownership for felons, that’s a constitutional right that has long needed overhaul for so many reasons, but the right to vote, why??
Losing the right to vote is dangerous especially because then you could imprison people who vote against you and swing the vote. Wait…
The cynic in me points to the demographic makeup of those who are in prison or have a criminal record. This is continued systemic racism and the cruelty is the point.
I’d point to the non-war-on-drugs felony charges as better examples of the kinds of crimes that make sense to take voting away over. CSAM, massive tax fraud, terrorism, mass violence, particularly heinous yet targeted violence, forcing an altered state of mind onto others via unknown substances,
The kinda heinous sociopathic shit that marks a clear disregard for the social contract.
Broadly I disagree with the notion of there being a crime you never finish atoning for, but I can understand why people might hesitate to bring the gates down for folks who’ve committed such acts even after long periods of reform.
Problem is, that would be for federal crimes ionly. But, the biggest problem is that states write the rules for all elections, not the feds
Currently, no US state blanket bans the right to vote for felons. There are different variations of when you get the right back, but permanent removal is for specific felonies.
In late 2022, approximately 4.6 million people were unable to vote due to a felony conviction
Holy shit America! WTF??? That’s over 2% of the adult population!
You’re off by a bit. But what’s 10x between us friends?
258.3 million adults, so more like 1.7%. (Still too high, though)
I suck at math obviously.
Thanks for the correction.
How many eligible voters though?
Yeah, it gets worse when you start looking at demographics.
Of what country? Canada?
(that math gives America ~23 million adults; I think you mean 2%)
Yup. Corrected now.
Good. It is unlikely that there would be enough criminals, guilty of any crime actually worthy of being such, to successfully legalize that crime even if they wanted to (and for any reasonable crime most probably wouldn’t even want such, even theives don’t want to be stolen from). As such, there isn’t any particular risk in letting felons vote. However, not letting them do so allows laws to be weaponized to disenfranchise people
I’m fine with incarcerated felons not voting. But they should have a pathway to voting when they’re released. Maybe immediately upon release, or after probation. Something.
Let them vote in prison too!
They actually have the time to get politically informed.
Esp. because if you have enough people in prison that the results of elections would regularly depend on their votes your main problem is not prisoners voting or not, its having too many prisoners.
I disagree if only for the sake of avoiding the absolute deluge of “politicians are all criminals!” jokes that encouraging prisoner political engagement could bring about
new demographic launched LEZZZ GO
Being forced to pay taxes while not having the right to vote is taxation without representation - the exact thing we created America over.
Donald Trump supports this legislation.
And? Just because a terrible person supports something, doesn’t mean it is bad.
Because he will be a felon, of course.
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Removed by mod
And ofc the name checks out.
I can’t tell if that is a generic male or female. Female??
Would that change the meaning to their bill? You aren’t having sex with them and their gender is of no consequence.
No, I’m just genuinely unable to tell and thus curious. But I guess a person can’t even question this stuff our society is so insane now.
The bill itself means nothing to me.
You’re not an asshole, society is insane. Lol ok yea
What are you even talking about? You know what, I don’t care, I’m simply blocking your stupidity so I don’t have to see such nonesense again.
You mock someone’s appearance questioning their gender to discount the very real bill addressing actual problems instead of made up shit like Fox News. Then you act like it’s society with the problem. Sure. Please block me asshole, I’ll block you too
ROFL You complain about other people being derisive while you yourself lash out and abuse others every chance you get. Because of course your fee-fees matter, but others’ do not.
Sure. Please block me asshole, I’ll block you too
Oh my god, I remember who you are now. You go and get 'em, tiger. I’m sure the broken blocking feature will work the 26th time your dumb ass uses it to try to assert power over others.
You’re an asshole and a bully. You’re exactly like the right-wing anti-LGBTQ bible thumpers you think yourself superior to. You are exactly the arrogant, immature, emotionally weak sack of shit you accuse others of being.
Now go ahead. Throw a temper tantrum and block me too. Let me get another laugh out of you. Or I’ll block you first; does that mean I’ll win something?
Oh yeah, you, the self admitted troll. I know you remember me seeing how you created 6 accounts to stalk me. Dude I do not want to be your friend or whatever you think this is. Fuck off stalker trash
