Voting question for you US citizens here.

[House Music Aficionado]

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I am a naive Canadian. That said, please forgive my limited understanding of American constitutional procedure, US jurisprudence, and particularly the US electoral system. It's wildly fascinating nonetheless.


I am wondering:


- Can incarcerated prison inmates (serving time at a state or federal correctional facility), vote in federal Presidential, Mid-term Senate/House elections, or even at party primaries? (.i.e.: Are locked up peeps eligible to vote?)


I'm too lazy to conduct research, hence, would like some insight to the aforementioned inquiry. Albeit popular votes do not count, I am also wondering if inmates are prohibited from exercising their Constitutional right to vote, if this in any way would adversely impact delegate counts for minority candidates running? Thanks!

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[Dolemite73]

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I am a naive Canadian. That said, please forgive my limited understanding of American constitutional procedure, US jurisprudence, and particularly the US electoral system. It's wildly fascinating nonetheless.


I am wondering:


- Can incarcerated prison inmates (serving time at a state or federal correctional facility), vote in federal Presidential, Mid-term Senate/House elections, or even at party primaries? (.i.e.: Are locked up peeps eligible to vote?)


I'm too lazy to conduct research, hence, would like some insight to the aforementioned inquiry. Albeit popular votes do not count, I am also wondering if inmates are prohibited from exercising their Constitutional right to vote, if this in any way would adversely impact delegate counts for minority candidates running? Thanks!

.....

Felons are not allowed to vote, whether incarcerated or not.

[mhd]

generally speaking no, but rules vary by state, in limited circumstances you can get the right to vote back, but its very tough

[House Music Aficionado]

Felons are not allowed to vote, whether incarcerated or not.


Oh I see. So, are you suggesting that once an individual has a criminal conviction (e.g.: a felony under their belt), they're ineligible to vote, in essence a lifetime ban from voting?


Also, roughly, any statistical data on as to how many minority votes this negates?


Thx.

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[Dolemite73]

Oh I see. So, are you suggesting that once an individual has a criminal conviction (e.g.: a felony under their belt), they're ineligible to vote, in essence a lifetime ban from voting?


Also, roughly, any statistical data on as to how many minority votes this negates?


Thx.

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This negates MANY minority voters. And I believe it is a crock of shit, too. Once a felon has paid his debt to society, he should be allowed to exercise his/her rights.

[mhd]

This negates MANY minority voters. And I believe it is a crock of shit, too. Once a felon has paid his debt to society, he should be allowed to exercise his/her rights.

cosign,

[DaveR]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9785-2004Aug17.html

[House Music Aficionado]

Concurred on all counts. Thank you, gentlemen. I didn’t know about this (and nice informative WP article there!).


In any event, I’d be curious to know if special interest groups by the likes of the ACLU, The Center for Constitutional Rights, et al. parties have launched any constitutional challenge with respect to this. (In Canada we had a similar prohibition for inmates, but the CCLA – our ACLU equivalent – successfully challenged this before the Supreme Court of Canada, and got a ruling in favor of the inmates). Anyways, I’ll defer this to US lawyers here (i.e.: Doug Smith, and others) for an opinion.


As brilliantly suggested by Dolemite73, convicted offenders who had paid their debts to society should be able to retain their rights back ---- and in full. Now, unlike convicted sex offenders who might be forced to relinquish their rights to be near children unsupervised, this “voting ban” seems to be innately discriminatory and highly prejudicial. IMHO, this is likely to impede minority votes possibly voting in favor of minority candidates in municipal, state, and federal elections.


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