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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Not my problem, but I'm torn on my opinion. On the one hand, seems like an interesting idea. On the other, the US is known as being too quick to incarcerate people. Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crimes and taking a harder look at why anyone is being locked up for non-violent crimes.

It seems potentially reasonable that violent criminals should be disenfranchised. Some people should not have a voice in society - like raping murderers.

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To flip it around: Allowing incarcerated people to vote removes any political incentive to convict supporters of political opponents. This would allow reforms about incarceration to be less politically divisive, and more focused on what's good for society.

I would go further, and say that their voices should be represented, as they as likely people who society has failed, before they failed society.

I support making voting a right to all citizens, removing any games around preventing others to vote, and ensuring everyone has a voice. Yes, even the worst of the worst, as the harm in letting them have their meager affect on the voting results is far less than those caused politicians choosing who their electorate is.

> Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crimes and taking a harder look at why anyone is being locked up for non-violent crimes.

They are orthogonal problems. Solving one doesn't solve the other.

And disenfranchisement is creating problems as shown in the article, while it tries to solve a problem, which is practically non-existent thanks to representative democracy.

First off, trying to delineate between who is allowed to vote and who except on most general rules (e.g. citizens over X years) is more likely than not to be used and abused to shape the electorate. The details are well documented, as in the article.

On the other hand, what does excluding criminals trying to solve? You don't want them to decide what will happen in the country, but that is why there is a representative democracy. They are only allowed to vote for one of their "betters", which will take the decisions. (The classism was to my knowledge partly intentional in design). And their numbers are low enough, that they won't be able to chose a representation, which overrules the non-incarcerated

> Some people should not have a voice in society - like raping murderers.

But people running a business making millions addicted to opioids? It is not complicated to condemn criminals, but it is complicated to set up a system, which doesn't use that wish for retribution to distort the electorate. And to what end? What objective problem does it solve?

> > Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crimes and taking a harder look at why anyone is being locked up for non-violent crimes.

> They are orthogonal problems. Solving one doesn't solve the other.

I disagree. If incarcerating people weren't an effective method of both denying people you don't like a vote and stealing their voting power for the people in your state that you aren't excluding through incarceration, there'd be a lot less incentive for mass incarceration.

Of course, that's an argument for making voting for the incarcerated the first focus, since it naturally makes it easier to solve the other problem.

That's a good point, they are quite related. Certainly not "orthogonal".

Still the reasons for mass-incarceration are multifold and how much the voting rights issue is a motivation for it is anybodies guess. There are also simply economical reasons.

I still think, it is sensible to address both issues. Addressing one will likely help the other, but I have my doubts that it will be as effective as addressing both.

The removal of the right to vote is part of the systematic disenfranchisement of Black people in the US. Many states still have laws permanently removing the right to vote from people with felony convictions.

Recent shenanigans in Florida pretty clearly lay out what's at stake here. Enough people are put through the criminal justice system that they would be a significant voting block... if they have the right to vote. And since they can't vote, politicians have literally no interest in ensuring that prisons are handled humanely.

It's also worth considering that many violent offenders get put away when they're basically still kids, and become totally different people as adults. The mythical Charles Manson interest group is vanishingly small, and easily outweighed by basically every other voter.

Finally, the restoration of voting rights for felons was delivered by a ballot initiative led by formerly incarcerated people. They most definitely did not consider it a waste of energy! The Planet Money podcast just had an excellent episode on the issue, with interviews with a couple of the people who made it happen: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/26/927846676/who-gets-to-vote-in...

> Some people should not have a voice in society - like raping murderers.

But why? If murderers should be disenfranchised then why not jaywalkers? People who leave the shopping carts in the middle of a parking lot? I would like to see people who have car alarms but don't shut them off for over five minutes be disenfranchised as well. Where does this end?

> If murderers should be disenfranchised then why not jaywalkers?

Presumably they are, if they're incarcerated. I don't see why the crime of the person should matter. What do people think they're going to vote for, a rape and murder party?

Being incarcerated is the punishment; denying the vote is just cheap populism, being seen to be 'tough on crime', with the added benefit (for politicians) that if prisoners have no vote there's no incentive to treat them humanely.

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