# On what basis can a state deny parolees the right to vote?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 31, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771 "2008-01-31T21:23:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/1 "2008-01-31T21:23:45Z")
Do you remember in 2000 when the office of the Secretary of State of Florida was purging voters because they supposedly were convicted felon parolees? (Many were not.) Florida, as do many other states, has a law which says parolees can’t vote. (I think some even have laws which say any convicted felon who is not on parole or probation can’t vote.)
Well, if a state can do that, what’s to keep a state from purging people who have gotten a speeding ticket? Or a jaywalking ticket?
I can understand why a parolee shouldn’t be around other convicts or gangbangers, or possess a firearm, or engage in various other behaviors that could be a danger to the public.
But voting? How is anyone going to be a danger to the public by voting? This seems to me like _unusual_ punishment under the 8th. It’s unusual, irrelevant, and inappropriate punishment. If you’ve done your time, you’ve done your time. Or maybe the rationale is that a convicted criminal is going to vote for another criminal? Well, lots of **un** convicted people have done that (hello, Duke Cunningham).
I realize that the Constitution says only that a state can’t prevent anyone from voting on the basis of sex, race, religion, ability to pay a poll tax, etc. But what in the Constitution prevents a state from saying that, say, people with outstanding library fines can’t vote?
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### Author:  [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/2 "2008-01-31T22:01:57Z")
Here is a chart that shows the relevant state laws: [http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/fd\_bs\_fdlawsinus.pdf](http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/fd_bs_fdlawsinus.pdf)
As discussion of the relevant constitutional provisions: [http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legal/constitution/constitutionpermits.htm](http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legal/constitution/constitutionpermits.htm)
And the cases: [http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legalcases.htm](http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legalcases.htm)
Here’s an article: [http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Uggen\_Behrens\_Manza\_ARLSS\_05.pdf](http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Uggen_Behrens_Manza_ARLSS_05.pdf)
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/3 "2008-01-31T22:18:50Z")
Well, to use your example, a parolee may not be a danger to society by simply possessing a firearm (which IS a right under the 2nd amendment) but a state could argue that allowing a class of people (ex-felons) the vote could swing the elections to people unsuit for office.
Not that I agree, but you draw the line at possessing guns, and Florida draws it at voting. Seems like an issue for the legislatures, not the courts…
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/4 "2008-01-31T22:21:54Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
Here is a chart that shows the relevant state laws: [Client Challenge](http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/fd_bs_fdlawsinus.pdf)
[/qUOTE]
So Vermont and Maine allow prisoners to vote? Seriously? Do they have precients at the prisons?
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/5 "2008-01-31T22:33:48Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
Here is a chart that shows the relevant state laws: [Client Challenge](http://www.sentencingproject.org/Admin/Documents/publications/fd_bs_fdlawsinus.pdf)
As discussion of the relevant constitutional provisions: [http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legal/constitution/constitutionpermits.htm](http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legal/constitution/constitutionpermits.htm)
And the cases: [http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legalcases.htm](http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/legalcases.htm)
Here’s an article: [http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Uggen\_Behrens\_Manza\_ARLSS\_05.pdf](http://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Uggen_Behrens_Manza_ARLSS_05.pdf)
[/QUOTE]
Well, I don’t have time at the moment to read all of them, but my question still stands: What’s to stop a state from disenfranchising someone for speeding? As Clegg says,
[QUOTE=Clegg]
Excluding those who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy thus protects the integrity of the ballot box.
[/QUOTE]
Ergo: “I think someone who speeds is untrustworthy. I think he should be stripped of his right to vote.”
“Untrustworthy”? How could a convict disrupt the “integrity of the ballot box”? Does that mean he’s going to go into the church basement on election day and change all of the votes? That’s nonsense.
If you really think that by committing a crime (which might be something like possession of marijuana), but then serving time, a person is no longer suitable to participate in the social contract, you might as well re-institute banishment.
Legal scholars: such an expensive education and they come up with crap like this.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/6 "2008-01-31T22:42:08Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain]
Not that I agree, but you draw the line at possessing guns, and Florida draws it at voting. Seems like an issue for the legislatures, not the courts..
[/QUOTE]
My question is not wholly rhetorical, and the links above show some disagreement. So, I still ask: Can a state disenfranchise people who have gotten a speeding ticket?
Seems like “yes.” That is, unless someone takes it to the Supreme Court, and then what?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/7 "2008-01-31T22:49:43Z")
I was going to respond, and then I thought, wait a minute, \*\*Gfactor \*\* posts links to lengthy arguments and discussion of the issue but \*\*guizot \*\* can’t be bothered to read them before posting that the whole idea is crap? Why should I waste my time too?
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### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/8 "2008-01-31T22:54:05Z")
[QUOTE=guizot]
…It seems to me like _unusual_ punishment under the 8th. It’s unusual, irrelevant, and inappropriate punishment…I realize that the Constitution says only that a state can’t prevent anyone from voting on the basis of sex, race, religion, ability to pay a poll tax, etc. But what in the Constitution prevents a state from saying that, say, people with outstanding library fines can’t vote?
[/QUOTE]
There’s a long history of denying political rights to convicts and since all but two states do so in some form it certainly isn’t unusual punishment. And nothing in the constitution grants _anyone_ the right to vote. A state could in theory prevent people from voting if they had overdue library books.
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### Author:  [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/9 "2008-01-31T23:14:41Z")
I could prepare a long annotation that analyzed the constitutional provisions and cases, but you wouldn’t have time to read it. Instead I’ll summarily quote this:
> [@](#):
>
> Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, **except for participation in rebellion, or other crime** , the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State
(Emphasis added.)
and leave you to work it out.
Hint: You’ll probably want to review some of the cases and commentary.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/10 "2008-01-31T23:21:37Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
I was going to respond, and then I thought, wait a minute, \*\*Gfactor \*\* posts links to lengthy arguments and discussion of the issue but \*\*guizot \*\* can’t be bothered to read them before posting that the whole idea is crap? Why should I waste my time too?
[/QUOTE]
Well, no one’s twisting your arm. I’m trying to do four or five other things here, and I went through those very long links and I couldn’t find any definitive answer, and I was hoping someone (like **alphaboi867** ) happened to be able to venture a sentence or two (presumably) from experience, summarized in normal discourse, not legalese that rambles on and on and avoiding a conclusion as long as possible. Don’t worry, teacher, I’ll do my homework.
(Maybe this should be in IMHO.)
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/11 "2008-01-31T23:35:39Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
I could prepare a long annotation that analyzed the constitutional provisions and cases, but you wouldn’t have time to read it. Instead I’ll summarily quote this:
(Emphasis added.)
and leave you to work it out.
Hint: You’ll probably want to review some of the cases and commentary.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks **Gfactor**. I’ll read the cases; I wish they’d just make the conclusions clearer. Clerks must be paid by the word.
I’d read that before writing the OP.
I’m still wondering: because it’s a noun/prepositional phrase (“except for participation…in crime”), it has no tense. Especially since it mentions “rebellion.” Does that mean that every member of the Confederacy could have been stripped of the right to vote forever by any given state? Does it mean that once a person commits a crime, their citizenship can thereby be truncated for the rest of their life?
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/12 "2008-01-31T23:39:24Z")
[QUOTE=guizot]
Do you remember in 2000 when the office of the Secretary of State of Florida was purging voters because they supposedly were convicted felon parolees? (Many were not.) Florida, as do many other states, has a law which says parolees can’t vote.
[/QUOTE]
A large part of the problem on that occasion was they also excluded parolees from other states who did not have such an exclusion law, which they were specifically prohibited by their own legislation from doing.
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### Author:  [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/13 "2008-02-01T00:06:17Z")
[QUOTE=guizot]
Thanks **Gfactor**. I’ll read the cases; I wish they’d just make the conclusions clearer. Clerks must be paid by the word.
[/QUOTE]
> [@](#):
>
> I’m still wondering: because it’s a noun/prepositional phrase (“except for participation…in crime”), it has no tense. Especially since it mentions “rebellion.” Does that mean that every member of the Confederacy could have been stripped of the right to vote forever by any given state? Does it mean that once a person commits a crime, their citizenship can thereby be truncated for the rest of their life?
_Richardson v. Ramirez_ (1974) has a long discussion of the clause and its history: [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=418&invol=24](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=418&invol=24) (yes, at least for felonies).
And here are some of the immediate consequences of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment:
> [@](#):
>
> In 1868 General Philip Sheridan, Commander of the Fifth Military District of Louisiana and Texas, called a constitutional convention to meet the conditions Congress imposed on the former States of the Confederacy: (1) suffrage regardless of race, and (2) ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Confederate veterans and Democratic officeholders were barred from the polls. This was the first and last Louisiana constitutional convention to which Negro delegates were admitted; the president of the convention and forty- nine of the ninety-eight delegates were Negroes. In the 1868 Constitution (the year of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment), Negroes finally received the right to vote and to hold office. This Constitution disfranchised all persons who had participated directly or indirectly in the War on the Confederate side and required, as a condition to voting, a certificate from Confederate soldiers and Democratic officeholders that ‘the late rebellion was morally and politically wrong.’
[http://www.law.stetson.edu/courses/casedigests/usvla.pdf](http://www.law.stetson.edu/courses/casedigests/usvla.pdf) (yeah, that happened).
And as \*\*alphaboi867 \*\* rightly points out, this doesn’t directly forbid a scheme like the one you describe. It merely describes the consequences of schemes that limit the franchise.
[QUOTE=The case that may not be cited]
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U. S. Const., Art. II, §1. This is the source for the statement in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. Id., at 28-33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).
[/QUOTE]
[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-949](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-949)
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/14 "2008-02-01T01:13:25Z")
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
_Richardson v. Ramirez_ (1974) has a long discussion of the clause and its history:
[/QUOTE]
I had to register for that, but I’ll keep it bookmarked. Thanks.
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
And as \*\*alphaboi867 \*\* rightly points out, this doesn’t directly forbid a scheme like the one you describe. It merely describes the consequences of schemes that limit the franchise.
[/QUOTE]
I’m still wondering how far a state could get in disenfranchising a person for speeding. Would it survive a Supreme Court test? What is a “crime,” and if once a criminal, always a criminal, and not a full citizen?
You know, these legal documents would be a lot more useful if they just said the conclusion first, and went through all the monotonous details of precedence later.
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### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/15 "2008-02-01T02:13:11Z")
Reconstruction-era nitpicks:
1. **gfactor** , the constitutional convention you describe in Louisiana was a consequence of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, not of the Fourteenth Amendment. The convention took place before the Amendment was ratified.
2. The Stetson cite is incorrect as to the provisions of the Louisiana Constitution of 1868. Louisiana never disenfranchised “all persons who had participated directly or indirectly in the War on the Confederate side”. The exact language of the Constitution of 1868 disqualified
> [@](#):
>
> Those who held office, civil or military, for one year or more under the organization styled “The Confederate States of America”; those who registered themselves as enemies to the United States, those who acted as leaders of guerrilla bands during the late rebellion; those who, in the advocacy of rebellion, wrote or published newspaper articles, or preached sermons during the late rebellion; and those who voted for or signed an ordinance of secession in any State.
A motley laundry list, to be sure, but not “all persons who had participated” in the rebellion–and even the persons effected could regain the vote by acknowledging “the late rebellion to have been politically wrong”.
The only impact of the subsequently ratified Fourteenth Amendment was to inoculate Louisiana against having its representation reduced in Congress. Louisiana repealed the disenfranchisement clauses in 1870.
**guizot** : States control suffrage requirements, subject only to the minimal federal Constitutional requirements that they not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age if over 18, or failure to pay taxes. In addition, a truly silly franchise law, divorced from any rational purpose (such as your speeding ticket example, or disenfranchising all persons whose last names begin with Q) would probably violate the Equal Protection clause. When existing felon disenfranchisement laws have been tested, the Supreme Court has found them _not_ to violate the Equal Protection Clause or any of the other restrictions listed above. We can only speculate on where the _exact_ line would be drawn between permissible and impermissible restrictions.
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### Author:  [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/16 "2008-02-01T02:30:16Z")
[QUOTE=Freddy the Pig]
Reconstruction-era nitpicks:
1. **gfactor** , the constitutional convention you describe in Louisiana was a consequence of the Reconstruction Acts of 1867,
[/QUOTE]
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/17 "2008-02-01T02:38:51Z")
[QUOTE=guizot]
You know, these legal documents would be a lot more useful if they just said the conclusion first, and went through all the monotonous details of precedence later.
[/QUOTE]
Funny you should mention that. Attorneys pay a ton of money for books that contain the court opinions, which are accompanied by something they call “headnotes.” These are brief summaries of the salient points of the case, put at the head of the printed case so that those who are on a budgeted amount of time can extract the relevant information quickly. These headnotes are then categorized according to an indexing scheme, and attorneys then pay even more money to own large numbers of volumes that contain each and every one of these headnotes, indexed according to the scheme. That way, you can see at a glance (glance being a relative term, for some points of law 😃 ) all of the cases that have pissed on that particular patch of ground. :eek:
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/18 "2008-02-01T02:41:35Z")
[QUOTE=guizot]
I’m still wondering how far a state could get in disenfranchising a person for speeding. Would it survive a Supreme Court test? What is a “crime,” and if once a criminal, always a criminal, and not a full citizen?
[/QUOTE]
First of all, in almost all states, speeding is a civil traffic infraction against your driver’s license, not necessarily you. I suppose a state could argue in court that a person who has been convicted of speeding showed a “poor judgement” and under the original understanding of the Constitution, a federal court wouldn’t even hear it.
Most states limited the vote to white male property owners over the age of 21. While the “white” “male” and “age 21” are all no good because of subsequent amendments, the property qualification could come back, IMHO.
In my opinion, while it would be the highest act of stupidity, a state should be able to set its own rules for voting provided it doesn’t violate federal constitutional limitations. So, yes, I would think it should pass muster for a state law taking away the vote to speeders. But that is a red herring of sorts. What state do you think has a majority in each house of its legislature, with a willing Governor, to pass such a restriction?
That process eliminates the most egregious..
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/19 "2008-02-01T14:42:57Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain]
First of all, in almost all states, speeding is a civil traffic infraction against your driver’s license, not necessarily you.
[/QUOTE]
Would you care to back this assertion with some law, please?
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### Author:  [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2008, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-what-basis-can-a-state-deny-parolees-the-right-to-vote/435771/20 "2008-02-01T14:58:48Z")
[QUOTE=jtgain]
So Vermont and Maine allow prisoners to vote? Seriously? Do they have precients at the prisons?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know this for a fact but I would strongly guess they use mail-in ballots for prisoners.
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