Should felons be allowed to vote?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should felons be allowed to vote?
Position‹2 of 5›: Felons should never be allowed to vote
Argument‹2 of 3›: Voting is a privilege

The Constitution frames voting as a privilege, not a right. By breaking the law, felons have proven that they do not deserve this privilege.

The argument

People who oppose felony disenfranchisement speak of voting as a human right, but the Constitution does not guarantee voting rights to all citizens. Although amendments have made it unconstitutional to deny someone voting rights based on race or sex, a universal right to vote is not ratified in the Constitution. Proponents treat that distinction as decisive: barring particular grounds for exclusion is not the same as granting the franchise to everyone, and those amendments regulate how the vote may be withheld rather than establishing that it may not be. Nor does the document address the specific case. The Constitution does not speak against felony disenfranchisement. Thus, felony voting restrictions are not a violation of human rights as they are described in the Constitution. From that silence an inference about intent is drawn: if our founders had considered voting to be a human right, they would have guaranteed it to all citizens, since that is what a right is for and they did not hesitate to write down other guarantees. For this reason, it is logical to conclude that America's founders considered voting a privilege, not a right. The rest follows from what the word privilege implies. People must earn privileges — that is precisely what separates a privilege from a right, which is held simply by virtue of being a person. Because of this, it is rational to conclude that people must earn voting rights. Felons clearly haven't done this. On the contrary, they have acted in ways that prove they do not deserve this privilege. Proponents close by noting that the principle is already applied elsewhere without controversy. Our government has no qualms about depriving felons of other privileges like their freedom (by imprisoning them), so taking away voting privileges should not be an issue.

Premises

[P1]The Constitution does not guarantee a universal right to vote; it only bars denying the vote on grounds like race or sex, so felony disenfranchisement violates no constitutional right. [P2] Had the founders considered voting a right, they would have guaranteed it to all citizens, so voting is a privilege that must be earned, and the government already deprives felons of other privileges like freedom. [C] Therefore, since felons have not earned this privilege, felons should never be allowed to vote.

Counter-arguments

While it is not formally ratified in the U.S. Constitution, the right to vote is continually referenced elsewhere. U.S. courts have stated that the right to vote "is preservative of other basic civil and political rights." Disenfranchising felons of this right is fundamentally undemocratic.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Citizens do have the inherent right to vote.