Encyclopedia of Opinion
Question
Should felons be allowed to vote?
Position‹3 of 5›
Felons should be able to vote even while in prison
Argument1 of 3›

Felons are still citizens

Although they are incarcerated, felons are still citizens of the United States. As citizens, they are entitled to voting rights. We should not take their rights away because of their incarceration.

The argument

Although they are incarcerated, felons remain citizens of the United States. As citizens, they are guaranteed certain, inalienable rights. We should consider voting as one of these rights. The word inalienable is doing the work here: a right that may be withdrawn as a punishment is really a privilege conditional on good conduct, and the argument is that the franchise does not belong in that category. A felon's incarceration does not make them completely separate from society. They will still be influenced by the decisions of elected officials like all other citizens and thus deserve to have their voices heard. That influence is if anything more direct than it is for anyone outside, since sentencing law, prison funding and the conditions of confinement are all settled by legislatures, and prisoners live under those decisions more immediately than the electorate that makes them. Felons have a right to participate in democracy, regardless of their incarceration. Furthermore, the objective of incarceration should be to rehabilitate prisoners for future success in society. Disenfranchising felons only serves to alienate them, working against the stated purpose of the sentence by treating a person as outside the community at the very moment they are supposed to be preparing to rejoin it. We cannot ask felons to pay their debt to society if we don't even preserve their right to participate in society. The demand and the exclusion pull in opposite directions. Why improve yourself for the community's sake if you are not even permitted to participate in it?

Premises

[P1]Incarcerated felons remain citizens of the United States and are therefore still guaranteed certain inalienable rights, of which voting should be counted as one. [P2] Felons continue to be affected by the decisions of elected officials, and since rehabilitation and reintegration are the goals of incarceration, disenfranchisement only alienates them from the society they are asked to rejoin. [C] Because felons are still citizens with a stake in democracy, they should be able to vote even while in prison.

Counter-arguments

A large part of imprisonment's punitive nature is losing certain freedoms. It is not undemocratic for one of these lost freedoms to be the right to vote. While serving their sentences, prisoners should lose their freedom to vote in the same way that they lose their freedom to choose their place of residence and move freely in society. Also, giving people who have displayed no respect for the country's laws a say in choosing them makes no sense. If a person doesn't respect the law enough to obey it, they shouldn't be allowed to participate in dictating it.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Bring imprisoned inherently means freedoms are taken away which are afforded to other members of society.