I think people in prison should be allowed to vote
I think people in prison should be allowed to vote
In a democracy, I don't see how their vote really matters less. Plus it'll help improve prisons perhaps.
I can't remember where I heard this originally, but I subscribe to the belief that you need to maintain the rights of criminals (like voting) to prevent tyranny.
Because if being labeled a criminal is enough to remove your rights, a corrupt government need only declare you one to take your rights away.
It used to be criminal in some parts of the USA for black and white people to intermarry, for example. Imagine losing your right to vote because of who you married.
It was Nelson Mandela:
A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.
To be honest I was shocked when I learned about this stripping of rights when you are imprisoned in the US. It is literally a tool of tyranny to lock people up in order to silence them.
there are states that have government employees who engage with prisoners and get them back into a eligible voter status. sadly not all of the USA believes in Democracy.
And that's precisely why I can't own a gun! I got framed for some bullshit and compelled to plea guilty probably because I'm vocal enough to end up on someone's list.
I'd guess it's probably from a curated Tumblr post which I'll paraphrase:
"Every criminal deserves rights"
"Except pedophiles, they're true scum"
"Yes, also pedophiles"
"You're a piece of shit"
"If pedophiles don't have rights, then everyone they want to not have rights will be declared a pedophile. For example, transgender people, queer people, liberals, and more have all been accused of preying on children"
"Oh."
Meanwhile pedophiles, knowing they're taboo, go to great lengths to be undetected and therefore never seek treatment and cause more harm.
I mean, it's true. That's how we still have slavery.
In Canada voting is considered a Charter Right (or basic level of freedom nessisary to preserving human dignity and right of participation in society). While I keep pushing for voting reform regarding the first past the post system it's definitely something I think we got right. Everyone should decide what sort of society we live in including those who have run afoul of it in some way or another.
They are allowed to vote in civilized countries.
What do you think of France, UK, Italy and China? Because a prisoners right to vote can be removed in those countries as well.
In France we treat our prisoners like utter shit. If they way you treat the people you have power over is an important marker of civilization/democracy (and I believe it is), we fail this test real hard.
That being said, the tribunal has to specifically add to the prison sentence an exclusion from the right to vote. Iirc, about 25k prisoners (among the 75 or 80k total) have been deprived from the right to vote during their sentence.
Voting from prison in France is complicated,there are 3 options afaik:
- you can delegate your vote to someone on the outside
- you can resquest a "day off" to go to the polls
- since 2019 you can vote by correspondance
The "can I please go out to vote" has to be approved by the warden, and dosen't happen much.
Delegating your vote isn't always easy either, prison has a tendancy to isolate people from their former close ones.
The correspondance vote is recent and seems like the best of the three. In 2017 (presidential electio ), less than 2% of imprisoned people had voted. In the 2022 presidential election, more than 20% of them did.So far, voting logistics and the feeling that society doesn't want you has imo prevented far more people to vote than the "you can't vote for the next x years" addendum to sentences.
Whatabout the UK, France, and China?
The UK whose flailing neo-fascist government just passed a law allowing it to deport refugees to Rwanda? Whose government is about to experience a historic blowout at the polls? Whose government destroyed their economy by pulling them out of the EU to try to regain the glory of the empire? That UK?
France with is neoliberal government? Macaron had spent so much time attacking workers and their rights to steal from the rich and give to the poor that he's almost handed the counry to the fascist brownshirts of Marine Le Pen?
This Italy? ?
And China?
I believe I said, "civilized countries".
How is China civilized?
China? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Inventors of democracy and land of the free baby!
They just handing out babies where you are? That just doesn't seem responsible!
But if you let prisoners vote, you'd have to let the black ones vote too. And if you did that, there'd be next to no point in locking them up in the first place.
Totally reasonable and normal opinion. Possible in many countries
Bruh, the democracy in my country is a joke and even we have votes on prisons, what the hell? I thought this was standard.
I thought this was standard.
I think a lot of Americans don't share that belief.
The War On
Black PeopleDrugs created a generation of people entirely fine with the idea that not only do prisoners not have rights, they deserve to suffer out of prison as well.
I'll go one further, voting should be mandatory, punishable by a fine. The ballot should also have "none of the above" as an option.
Based. Spoiling the ballot is also common but in this case, a "none" box would make sense too
Literaly brasil (also for prisioners voting)
Australia too, I believe.
I like the theory, but the practice is that you can force people to vote but not to be informed. People can just show up and push the button on the top.
It also means you gotta decide what to do when every election is won by "none of the above".
None of the above is where you fill in a name
No! If None Of The Above wins the election, we simply go without a president for four years, and the parties think long and hard about how to find a candidate that's better than literal empty space
Can we at least make it so write in candidates don't have to pre register?
I'll bring my d20.
I don’t know, I’m more of the opinion that everyone should do a competence test or something before they are even allowed to vote.
If one is a citizen of a country the right to vote should be the same as the right to breathe air.
The only qualification should be citizenship.
I can see the argument that when someone has committed a felony, you are taking them out of society as punishment. However once they’ve done their time and re-enter society, they have all the rights and privileges
Geez, connect this with the previous article on “pay to stay” debt, combine it with background searches for most jobs and debt …… how the heck does anyone come back from even a short sentence? If we’re making it unnecessarily difficult to reintegrate, how are we surprised when they fall?
how the heck does anyone come back from even a short sentence
That's the neat part: You don't.
It is incredibly difficult, bordering on impossible in some states.
So I can't breathe air if I'm not a citizen? Guess I'll die
Correct. Go breathe air in your own county. /S
This isn't remotely unpopular among most people on the Fediverse I think.
You're correct, but I don't think this is an actually unpopular opinion, is it?
If you live in the United States, I think think answer to that depends on which state you live in.
Extremely unpopular Nationwide.
Even if not while they are in prison, definitely once they have served their time. Absolute bullshit that you can never vote again once you've done time. (Federal crimes I mean)
It's a seriously bad idea to remove imprisoned people's rights even though point of prison is to remove rights to freedom of movement.
Why it's bad is because if you remove voting or communication rights then it opens the door to removing those rights with laws targeted at a minority. If a certain minority votes against you you can find a behavior in than group and make it illegal.
Black people in the US were especially targeted with this because of the War on Drugs as an example.
In many countries they do vote!
Restriction of personal freedom and restriction of citizen rights are two different forms of punishments, ideally useful in different circumstances. But I guess thiie US applies them jointly?
The US loves to disenfranchise prisoners and felons, because the US has carefully throughout its history jiggered the system so that black people are significantly more likely to wind up as prisoners and felons. Felon disenfranchisement became suspiciously popular among US states immediately following the Civil War. No points for guessing why.
The situation has improved somewhat recently, with many states (although most of them not in the deep south...) relaxing laws and allowing previously convicted people to have their voting rights restored either automatically or via some process. To my knowledge, however, only two states allow incarcerated people to vote: Maine and Vermont.
In Texas, incarcerated people can technically vote by mail. But they have to apply (and can't be felons)
BuT WhaT iF tHey VOTe To FRee aLL pRiSONErs???
And to your second point: if people were trying to improve prisons, they wouldn't be so damn lucrative
They don't have the right proportion to do that. And if they did, then maybe it would actually be a valid vote
Who better and more motivated to effect the law than those who have been wronged by it?
as long as they didn't commit voter fraud, I'm all for it. if you went to prison for fucking with the election, I think you should lose your vote.
There would have to be a ton of work involved to prevent the prisons (being private entities) from attempting to control\influence the votes.
I’m not sure I follow. The way I read this was “we should remove constitutional rights from certain people because of the outsized influence certain companies might have on them.” Was that the correct way to read this comment? If so, do you also advocate for the abolition of social media, print journalism, radio, any kind of advertisement, any gathering, and television?
The vast majority of prisons are not private
It's not much more than for regular people to vote. Electoral commission goes to the prison and they vote one by one.