A5
THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, MAy 18, 2019
PRO-CON
Is it time to allow America’s
huge prison population to vote?
E.J. Harris/East Oregonian
Inmates make furniture in the wood shop at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla.
PRO: Allowing prisoners to
vote would reform America’s
outdated prison policies
By Amani Sawari
S
EATTLE — Since the U.S. was
established, there has never been
a time in history where all its cit-
izens could vote.
At first, only property-owning white
men 21 and over could vote.
In 1868 the right to vote was white
men who were 21 and older.
It wasn’t until 1870 that black men
were allowed to vote. It took another
50 years before women could vote.
Native Americans were disenfran-
chised until less than 100 years ago.
Today more than 6 million citizens are
still disqualified from voting as a result
of their incarceration.
This new suffrage movement has
arisen because more and more Ameri-
cans have come to realize our democ-
racy is flawed due to these draconian
practices that inconsistently restrict
citizens’ civil liberties.
Many other democratic nations
including Canada, Israel, Germany,
Norway, South Africa and Spain fully
enfranchise their incarcerated popula-
tion by allowing prisoners to vote.
Incarcerated citizens have intimate
knowledge of the criminal justice sys-
tem that prison officials, staff and out-
side citizens don’t.
We fail to take advantage of their
direct experience to shape policy
when we do not take their vote into
consideration.
Prisoners’ desire, for example, to
make our nation’s corrections facilities
safer, rehabilitative and more effec-
tive far outweigh that of other citizens
because their lives depend on it.
We, as a nation, cheat ourselves of
the opportunity to shape our system
around what works for impacted pop-
ulations when we do not incorporate
their votes.
Currently there is no one held
responsible for the deplorable, vola-
tile conditions of our nation’s over-
crowded prisons. Prisoners having
their voting rights restored would
make politicians accountable to pris-
oners and the conditions of our
nation’s prisons.
Restoring prisoners’ right to vote
could also reduce recidivism rates. Fif-
ty-four percent — more than half of
citizens impacted by incarceration —
believe that voting would help them
stay out of federal and state prisons
and local jails after their internment.
Citizens participating in their
society with a feeling of belonging
because they are included in the devel-
opment of law and public policy are
less likely to commit crimes against it.
A main issue for citizens reintegrat-
ing from prison is their lack of knowl-
edge in the many ways that society has
changed by the time of their release.
We can help make sure that incarcer-
ated citizens stay informed about soci-
etal evolutions by incentivizing them
to stay engaged with politics through
the practice of voting.
Many incarcerated individuals
lost their voting rights prior to ever
practicing them. Only 37 percent
of today’s prison population said
they voted before they were
incarcerated.
Felony disenfranchisement is a
symptom left behind from Jim Crow.
The rights of formerly enslaved Afri-
cans were tweaked, trimmed and
stripped throughout the Jim Crow era.
A country committed to the abo-
lition of slavery also would need to
be committed to dismantling all of
those policies that were created to
uphold slavery practices, including
the exploitation of labor and strip-
ping the voting rights of incarcerated
populations.
With the era of mass incarceration
ushered in by the failed war on drugs,
it’s essential that our government take
a serious stance against decades of its
dehumanization of prisoners because
of overly punitive legislation. We can
begin by restoring incarcerated citi-
zens’ voting rights.
Our nation is much too focused on
punishment. The rehabilitative aspect
of corrections departments along with
rebuilding trust in government can be
strengthened by fully enfranchising all
of our nation’s citizens — including
those who are incarcerated.
Amani Sawari is a leading u.S.
champion of prisoner’s rights.
CON: Jailed voters should be
rehabilitated and freed before
their voting rights are restored
By Merrill Matthews
D
ALLAS — On April 24, Texas
executed white supremacist
John William “Bill” King. He
was a murderer, but he also would
have been a voter — if Democratic
presidential candidate Bernie Sanders
had his way.
King was found guilty of the brutal
1998 murder of James Byrd Jr., a black
man, by chaining Byrd to the back of a
truck and dragging him to death. With
his conviction and incarceration, King
forfeited several of his rights and free-
doms — including the right to vote.
But then King deprived James Byrd
of all of his rights and freedoms, most
importantly, the right to life.
Sanders says incarcerated fel-
ons like Boston Marathon bomber
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and by extension
King, should still be allowed to vote
from their prison cells.
Had that been an option in Texas,
King likely would have supported can-
didates proposing to lighten the pen-
alties of those found guilty of hate
crimes and murder.
Could voting felons change election
outcomes? Maybe.
The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statis-
tics reports there were 1.5 million pris-
oners in state and federal correctional
facilities in 2016. That’s a lot of peo-
ple, and in close races the prison vote
just might make the difference in who
would win.
To be sure, most prisoners are in for
much less heinous crimes than King’s
— and often relatively minor offenses.
Even so, the public has an inter-
est in ensuring that serious and vio-
lent criminals are locked up and off the
streets. Criminals, by contrast, have
an interest in being out of prison. And
people vote their interests.
Historically, convicted felons have
lost the right to vote — sometimes per-
manently. But things are changing.
Both conservatives and liberals
have been rethinking punishment and
looking for ways to give ex-cons a sec-
ond chance and reintegrate them into
society.
The National Conference of State
Legislatures reports that in 14 states
and the District of Columbia, felons
lose the right to vote while incarcer-
ated, but that right is automatically
reinstated upon release from prison.
Twenty-two states reinstate the right
to vote only after felons have com-
pleted their parole or probation time.
And in 12 states, felons must take
some additional steps, such as petition-
ing a governor’s pardon, to have their
voting rights restored.
Only two states, Maine and Sand-
ers’ home state of Vermont, allow fel-
ons to retain the right to vote from jail.
Defenders of jailhouse voting claim
Vermont prisoners have always had the
right to vote, and that hasn’t caused
any problems — though one might
point out they keep electing Sanders.
But even if true, Vermont is a very
rural state that ranks next to last in
population and has the lowest crime
rate among the states, according to the
U.S. Crime Index.
Would Vermont’s experience sim-
ilarly apply to states with large urban
centers and inner cities with high
crime rates?
Sanders and others argue that limit-
ing felons’ voting rights is unjust.
For example, Rep. Alexandria Oca-
sio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) chief of staff,
Saikat Chakrabarti, recently tweeted,
“What’s the reason NOT to let incar-
cerated people vote? Shouldn’t the
people most affected by unjust laws
have some say in electing people to
change them?”
Was it an “unjust law” that put John
William King behind bars? Are we to
think he’s the victim?
Several countries are also reconsid-
ering their criminal punishment laws.
Some are letting those convicted of
minor or nonviolent crimes continue
to vote while incarcerated. That’s an
issue worthy of public consideration
and debate.
But it’s appropriate and just for the
state to restrict the rights of those who
choose to deprive others of their rights,
including the right to life.
James Byrd was never able to vote
again, thanks to John William King. It
is difficult to see why King and oth-
ers guilty of similarly heinous crimes
should retain their right to vote.
Merrill Matthews is a resident
scholar with the Institute of Policy
Innovation, a research-based public
policy think tank.