I agree that legislation about convicts and prisoners is a vote getter. No one wants to be “soft on crime”.
I’m listening to ads (god help me), there’s one for some candidates for our Supreme Court in MI stating “so and so found for a convicted felon on appeal…” well, ya know, if an court case is overturned on appeal, that means, generally, the original judge did something wrong. that’s how our system is ** supposed ** to work.
AND, one candidate for US Senate here is being labled a “liberal” on crime because she voted to reduce mandatory sentencing on certain crimes. Well, that was a responsible vote. the prior law had awful effects, filling up our prisons with non violent offenders with mandatory minimums. geez. it’s $30 K per year for a prisoner, so for the person caught “dealing” even a small amount of drugs could get up to 20 years. (dealing in my state includes being the middle man - as in saying “that guy there is selling drugs”) anyhow.
**Kimstu ** next time I’m in front of a rapid crowd calling out for blood at the idea of community corrections, will you come with me???
That was hilarious Gadarene especially Chris O-D. great. I also loved the one he did a while back about the Dick Cheney october suprise. About a month after it came out, political columnists started doing columns about the very sam thing. The man’s a visionary.
Not only that, consider it from a sex perspective. If the voting rights of all convicts were taken away, many more men than women would be disfranchised.
I could understand taking away certain convicts’ voting rights, but I think such power should be used sparingly.
It is my understanding that most prisoners/convicts, upon completion of their sentences, regain their civil rights upon release. Those in jail, serving time, do not have them, nor, so I assume, do parolees.
IMHO, the decrease in people voting started around 30 years ago, when the public realized that their choices for leaders were equally corrupt, often lied in the campaign promises, frequently ‘placed’ in the running by concealed backers for reasons having nothing to do with the general good, and most interested only in power, money and the many ‘perks’ available from lobbyists and their sponsoring companies with bottomless pockets of ready cash.
I do feel, however, if they increase the availability of voting from home or via the Internet, voter counts might increase. The Internet would have to be made much more secure to prevent hackers from screwing around with the votes.
IMHO, though, a convicted felon should loose all but the most basic civil rights while doing time. The loss of voting rights forever should be based on the type of and severity of the crime, after release.
Since the 24th Amendment protects your right to vote even if you failed to pay a poll tax “or any other tax,” does that mean that people who are in jail solely for tax crimes must still be allowed to vote?
I would guess not. They’re not being denied the right to vote for not paying taxes, they are being denied the right to vote for serving time in jail. Or at least that’s my guess.
The “other tax” phrase still refers to any other taxes that are connected DIRECTLY to the voting process.
from http://ncctest.netreach.net/sections/teacher/lesson_plans/html/70509.asp
"Capitation, Head, or Poll Tax
Tax on “living and breathing.” Was once collected at time of voter registration, but such collection
has been prohibited by 24th amendment (1964). May still be collected as long as there is no
connection to voter registration. For example, a city with limited tax base surrounded by wealthy
suburbs might place such a tax on those working within the city. "
In the UK local government elections for city councillors the turnouts are usually awful and seats are won and lost on the basis of half a dozen votes or less.This is sadly fairly common especially with inter-term elections where the sitting appointee has either died or retired and there is no national campaign as a result.
The worst turnouts are generally in the inner city areas.Guess you know what comes next.
It is quite likely that allowing prisoners the vote they could swing the balance of power in several councils.
With that in mind it would seem to me that candidates in such areas would find it worthwhile to access these votes with their election pledges, it would probably be done in subtle ways, as I doubt that doing it openly would endear such folk to the rest of the electorate.
Things like preferencial access to public housing for “rehabilitated” offenders or free transport for families of offenders to the local jails on the pretext of keeping them together and the like.
This then might lead to certain areas becoming sink holes for ex-prisoners and families and I am not sure wether that would be “a good thing”.
I cn see lots of potential problems but with effort they could be dealt with but my main thought is that there would likely be categories of offenders who would not be eligable to vote due to the severity of their crimes.This would lead to jails in which some would be allowed voting rights and others not, serving their time alongside each other.
That is just something to think about.
I think that once an offender has been deemed fit for release there can be no argument against their voting rights being restored.
[hijack]Many of the rogues we have are of the black and white stripey jersey type with masks and carrying large sacks conveniently labelled SWAG[/hijack]
