Why We Don’t Need Felony Disenfrancisement Laws Anymore

Civil and Human Rights News 06.20,11

Last week, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval vetoed a bill to restore voting rights to any ex-felon who “honorably completes a felony sentence of imprisonment, probation, or parole“.

Here’s his rationale:

“The right to vote is a privilege that should not lightly be restored to those few individuals who commit the most egregious crimes in our society,”

Kinda interesting to use “right” and “privilege” in the same sentence and not notice the contradiction, huh?

Interestingly enough though, Sandoval’s view isn’t without precedent. Truth is – from the very beginning of the republic, voting rights advocacy has been about confronting the inherent contradiction of the United States as a representative democracy that never intended to allow all people in its borders the right to vote.

At inception, only land-owning White men were allowed to vote. Jacksonian Democrats ended that in the 1840s.

  • Then came the 15th Amendment in 1870, which enfranchised Black men (at least constitutionally);
  • the 19th amendment in 1920, which enfranchised women;
  • The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which made Native Americans citizens and, at least in theory, meant they could vote;
  • the 23rd Amendment in 1961, which gave residents of Washington, D.C., the right to vote for president and vice president;
  • the 26th Amendment in 1964, which lowered the voting age to 18; and
  • the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its subsequent reauthorizations, which finally fully enfranchised Blacks, Native Americans, and language minorities.

See? Took a lot.

Though this has been a constant debate since our nation’s founding, treating voting as a privilege is a contradiction. It is quite literally, inherently, undemocratic.

Felony disenfranchisement is a different sort of animal than enfranchising women and minorities though. It is about the power we give the government to take away rights that should be fundamental. And most critically I think, it is also about, on some level, the role that Americans believe incarceration plays in society.

If we truly believe that incarceration is about punishment – and I think most of us do – then there is no reason to continue to deny civil rights of any kind to an American who has successfully completed their sentence. There is no reason to create a second-class of citizens who have fewer rights than the rest of us. The debt has been paid.

I suspect the more we make this point – and point out the contradiction of treating voting rights as a “privilege” – the more successful we will be in eliminating these laws.