The case for allowing felons to vote

According to a recent report by the Sentencing Project, “A record 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of felony disenfranchisement, or laws restricting voting rights for those convicted of felony-level crimes.”

It may be legal to deny felons the right to vote, but on the same token, it damages American lives.

{mosads}A staggering 84,722 school buses full of human beings have been stripped of their liberty, leaving them unable to participate in the democratic process of electing our next president. The reason it’s still legal to deny felons the right to vote is because of Section 2 of the 14th Amendment, which lays out a weak argument that a state may deny the right to vote to those who participate in a crime.

As we’ve seen in the past, there have been laws that are in fact laws, rooted in the Constitution, but at the same time are unjust. According the the philosopher Augustine, “an unjust law is no law at all.” A prime example is slavery — for years people thought it was OK to deny African-Americans the right to vote, and now, it’s moved to felons.

These “felons” are American mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and those who have served our country. By stripping their liberty, it furthers punishment beyond what they’ve already felt from the courts. Where in law does it state people should be held accountable for a crime more than once? Nowhere. Where in society does it say people should be held accountable for a crime more than once? Everywhere.

Society itself is a mechanism for further punishment of those who’ve committed a crime. It denies them jobs, housing and mental stability. Oh, I know what most might be thinking by now — felons are, well, felons, they should be ostracized. But I question that line of thinking because not all felons are violent killers and those you should fear. A lot of them are nonviolent and simply made a mistake.

Factually, the FBI conducted a study and found that out of the over 12 million people arrested in 2012, only 4 percent were for violent crimes. Nonviolent people did commit crimes, they did cause damage to society, they did disrupt other lives. There is no doubting that, but what I ask people to doubt is the notion that those who committed nonviolent crimes should be further punished, beyond the courts.

As a person who’s committed crime, I can say there is nothing more degrading than being shunned by mainstream society. I have committed 36 misdemeanors and three felonies. And as a human, I learned from my mistakes and was punished for them, through years of incarnation as a juvenile, days of solitary confinement, and more group homes than I can count. Luckily my record was sealed when I turned 19.

On paper, if you were to see my record you would have probably thought I was a lost cause — someone unable to function as a respectable member of society. But I went on and served five years in the U.S. Army as a noncommissioned officer, became the first person in my family to attend college, and now aspire to get a Ph.D. in U.S. policy and law. 

You see, the millions of people who have a criminal record are being denied the right to vote because of what’s on paper; their record is what constructs your image of them. But I can assure you that us “criminals” are living, breathing, human beings who — just like you — have made mistakes.

To all the policy makers who enforce the 14th Amendment: think of a time you may have taken something that’s not yours, maybe hit a joint at a party, or drove home after a few drinks; the difference between you and some felons is they got caught and you didn’t. Oh, and of course, they can’t vote and you can.

Stevens is an undergraduate at Arizona State University who studies U.S. policy, justice and law. Follow him on Twitter @CJSAuthor

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