Voting Behind Bars

[groovedaddy]

Another public conversation about race may be the last thing the Obama administration wants, but thanks to the Supreme Court, one is very likely on the way.

It has been nearly three months since the court “invited” — that is to say, ordered — Solicitor General Elena Kagan to “express the views of the United States” on whether laws that take away the right to vote from people in prison or on parole can be challenged under the Voting Rights Act as racially discriminatory.

The order came in a case from Massachusetts, Simmons v. Galvin, an appeal by prison inmates challenging a 10-year-old state constitutional amendment that stripped them of the right to vote while incarcerated. They seek Supreme Court review of a ruling, issued a year ago by the federal appeals court in Boston, that Congress never intended the Voting Rights Act to apply in prison. The federal government was not involved in the case. Now the administration — presumably under the direction of whomever President Obama names to succeed Ms. Kagan as solicitor general — has to come up with a position.

Given the implications of the case, the Supreme Court’s order has received surprisingly little attention. Forty-eight states, all except Maine and Vermont, deny convicted felons the right to vote, a modern version of the old concept of “civil death” for those convicted of serious crimes. In some states, as in Massachusetts, the ban lasts for the duration of the prison sentence. More often, it extends for years longer, through the parole period, as in New York, where in 2006 the federal appeals court rejected a challenge over the dissent of four judges, including Sonia Sotomayor.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/voting-behind-bars/?th&emc=th

[shraby]

1. The main reason people in jail and on parole shouldn't

be allowed to vote is because they are in a very vulnerable position. It would be easy to coerce or order them by giving them an incentive or a threat to vote in a certain way by prison authorities or other inmates.

[varkam]

4. I think that's a pretty slim reason for stripping people of their right to vote.

Don't you?

[Peace Patriot]

2. Well, maybe the upshot of the Shirley Sherrod affair will give the Obama administration

some cajones on this issue. It was, in the end, an example of the viciousness of white racism.

Denying prisoners the right to vote is obviously and blatantly racist. For instance, black prisoners are hauled out of urban areas into prisons in poorly populated, white, rural, Republican areas, where prisons abound. They are denied the right to vote but yet are COUNTED as "warm bodies" to boost the population numbers in these white rural areas for purposes of representation in Congress and federal money for education, roads, hospitals, emergency services and so on. The numbers in black inner city areas are depleted and their vote count is reduced, and the white rural areas with prisons get more political representation and economic aid than they merit.

It's not just that blacks suffer far more imprisonment, and more denial of the right to vote, than other groups. It is a whole rigged system to deny poor blacks proper political representation and power. And this is not even to mention the vast personal, family and community devastation that accompanies high imprisonment rates and the separation of prisoners from their communities, and the wretched, demeaning and unsafe and unhealthy conditions in our vast, increasingly privatized prison system.

You know, people complain about our president having become a king. I myself have criticized this. But, hey, if we have a king, let's benefit from it, okay? I'd like to see President (emperor) Obama issue His Majesty's general amnesty to all prisoners in this country who are in jail for drug possession, small time dealing, prostitution and other petty crimes--for starters.

And we can give half the $35,000 to $50,000 per year, per head, that now goes to prison profiteers for the destruction of these peoples' lives and communities, to the prisoners, to start new lives, and the other half to services to help them start new lives.

Our prison system is unconstitutional, undemocratic and inhumane is so many ways. It is "cruel and unusual" punishment for minor crimes or things that shouldn't be crimes at all, in a free society. It is punitive and NOT rehabilitative. It consigns human beings to hell and to damnation, often for nothing. It is a private boondoggle. It is very political. The rich are largely immune to imprisonment. Some who should be in prison are too powerful to prosecute or even to investigate. (We all know who they are.) And it is egregiously and irredeemably racist.

LET'S END THIS NOW!

[varkam]

3. I would argue that allowing prisoners to vote would at least give those who want to...

the ability to have some stake in this process we call a democracy, and maybe thereby a stake in this thing we call a society. Research indicates that at least ex-convicts who are active in the voting process have a much lower recidivism rate then those who do not (or cannot). I would think that the pros of allowing such a scheme would far outweigh the potential cons (pun semi-intended).