Should felons be allowed to vote?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Should felons be allowed to vote?
Position‹3 of 5›: Felons should be able to vote even while in prison
Argument‹3 of 3: Voting is a right

All citizens have the right to vote. We should not deprive anyone, even prisoners, of this right, because it is fundamental to democracy. Disenfranchising certain people gives the government more room to deprive others of voting rights.

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that voting is not a privilege granted for good conduct but a fundamental part of democracy: the basic right by which all citizens have an equal say in choosing their elected officials. The entitlement follows from citizenship itself, and imprisonment does not end citizenship. A prisoner remains subject to the laws the legislature passes and to the decisions of the officials being chosen, which on this view is precisely why the vote should not be taken away. Nor, proponents note, does a felony conviction reliably mark someone out as dangerous: over 50% of felonies are non-violent, so the line drawn by the label does not track the seriousness usually offered to justify the loss. The second argument concerns what follows once the principle is conceded. If the state may set criteria that people must meet in order to retain their voting rights, the franchise becomes something the government defines rather than something citizens hold by right. Criteria of that kind can be expanded. A category created for one group of offenders can be widened to reach others, and the decision about who falls inside it rests with the very officials whom voting is supposed to hold to account. Carried far enough, this produces a society in which the government essentially chooses who can and cannot vote, and religious, political and ethnic minorities can lose their voting rights because the government disapproves of them. Proponents therefore treat the prison wall as irrelevant to the question. Because the right attaches to the citizen rather than to the citizen's conduct, and because any conduct test is open to expansion by those it is meant to constrain, felons should be able to vote even while in prison.

Premises

[P1]Voting is a fundamental, basic right of democracy that gives every citizen an equal say, and prisoners remain citizens, especially as over 50% of felonies are non-violent. [P2] Allowing the state to strip voting rights based on conduct sets criteria that could be expanded to disenfranchise religious, political, and ethnic minorities the government disapproves of. [C] Therefore, because voting is a right the state should not take away, felons should be able to vote even while in prison.

Counter-arguments

Voting is not a right that is afforded to everyone. It is not ratified in the Constitution, and some people, like children or people who aren't citizens, are unable to vote. While voting may be an important part of democracy, it is not something that should inherently be afforded to everyone. It is a privilege that people must earn. Felons have proven that they do not deserve this privilege.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Voting is not an inherent right.