They Served Their Time. Now They’re Fighting for Other Ex-Felons to Vote.

You should consider using people-first language. Ex.: Instead of "felons" use "people convicted of felonies" or "formerly incarcerated people." Might be worth consulting with formerly incarcerated people as to what they prefer.

Many of us believe strongly that we have a traitor and cur who gained office by multiple lies, misrepresentations and fraud and is a serial sex abuse. Not only do we despise this man, but, we disrespect him and believe he never did an honest day's work in his spoiled privileged life. Most of those who have served time for felonies have more appreciation of our democracy and our rights than the so-called president of the United States.

"Ex-felon" is a challenging label which is easily understood.When we are not thinking! It conveys, in 7 letters, a created IDENTITY- who a person was/is- for adjudicated BEHAVIOR-what that person (s/he) did/is doing.Holding in abeyance whether that person actually committed the specific crime s/he is accussed of, or not. Innocents are convicted. And many guilty-of-crimes are not.For all sorts of known, unknown as well as unknowable reasons! Consider: the sex predators in our midst- at all levels.For how long have they been preying on...both in secular and G'D fearing lives? They all have a right to vote, and to continue to vote if the "preyed" way back then.And then there are an endless number of policymakers, from local to national, living out their days in a culture of personal unnaccountability. Not too often accused. Rarely charged. Less rarely adjudicated. VERY rarely "felonized." THEY can vote. If they choose to do so. Which of course raises the issue, having decided to "devoterize" the (ex)-felon, what should be done, in a democracy, whose quality of life and well being is anchored on mutual civility. Mutual trust. Mutual respect. Mutual caringness and help, when and if needed. Between those who know one another as well as with and for the stranger.When one acts-out their NON-CONSTITUTIONALLY-anchored "right" not to vote? Should this basic-right be taken from them? The first time?Second time?Should they be "felonized?" Violated in our daily enabled WE-THEY culture?

Ex-felons should be permitted to vote. As a fundamental right of citizenship, voting is part of reintegrating an ex-felon into the community. It works. One young ex-felon whom I have met is partially blind and unable to drive, but he works to organize his community to help children. He runs a rural community center where children can use computers to do their homework. SC, where I live, has rather restrictive voting laws for ex-felons. They are not told when they are eligible to vote again, which is after probation or parole and any restitution is completed. I work with others on a campaign to make sure they know their voting rights and help them get registered and to the polls along with others who want to vote. It's sad to see such low turnouts in primaries at a time when voting has never been more important.

IMO, the right to vote should never be withheld from a citizen - period. There are plenty of mentally defective non-cons in the general populace who have the right to vote, so why not the imprisoned?

Felons must understand that they have done society a great harm and should not be allowed to shape the future of American society.

I do not understand why criminals have a right to affect the government of my country.

Let me get this straight. They want to restore the voting rights of criminals, even though the vast majority of them never exercised those rights when they had them! Good luck with that!

I'm reminded of a news story back in 2013, when three kids fell into an icy river at a park in Washington state, and were rescued by some inmates on a work crew. As soon as they realized what happened, they dove into the freezing water and swam out to save all of them. The reaction from the public was bewildere, marveling gratitude. When asked about why they did it, one of the men seemed hurt, and said, "You see a kid in trouble, about to drown, of course you try to help. We've made serious mistakes, and that's why we're here repaying our debt to society. But we're still people." I think about that a lot when anything about prison reform, or rights for felons, is in the news. It just says so much about the bizarrely negative bias these people are saddled with. In that story, obviously they were non-violent offenders - they don't send rapists and murderers out to work in local parks. But to many, a "felon" exhibiting basic human decency and selflessness is as remarkable as a dog walking on its hind legs. I'm thrilled that this is finally a movement - I've always been horrified by the idea of stripping someone's right to vote. Between that and the ludicrous uphill battle they face finding long-term, decent employment, it essentially means any felony conviction comes with a life sentence as a second class citizen. If were busted for marijuana possession with intent to deal in 1974, you're not less of an American than anyone else.

There are unconvicted, untried criminals in business suits still free to walk the street and belong to elite clubs such as Goldman Sachs and Standard&Poor. Among other crimes against society, they orchestrated the 2008 Mortgage Crisis that threw thousands of families into bankruptcy and homelessness, they encouraged or turned a blind eye to unfair banking practices. Yet here they are, still high-fiving each other and chanting, "Greed is good!" whenever they've ripped off another trusting investor or client or tenant. They get to vote. They get to pay off politicians, too. Ex-cons, who may or may not have been fairly tried and convicted in the first place, who then served their time and met the requirements of the Parole Board, deserve to return to a fair shake at a decent future in their society. LET THEM VOTE!

Here in Colorado I used to work with felons. They face so many barriers it is unbelievable! Even after they've completed their sentences they still can't vote or own firearms. They also have lots of troubles finding work and housing, even if their individual crimes were non violent. It's like they're being permanently punished, and it has got to stop.

I applaud Steve Huerta for turning his life around from his 1999 conviction. He is now mentoring others to stay crime-free and be educated voters who don't take freedoms for granted. He & other productive ex-felons like him (ex. TV/film star Tim Allen was convicted of cocaine dealing & served time in his early 20s before finding God and his media career) are proof that recidivism can be overcome. That said, let's be honest in noting that it took truly repentant & reformed felons YEARS to turn their lives around. Let us not cheapen the value of the passage of time in assessing the core character of any individual. My valid concern is that if we keep insisting that just-freed/paroled felons should suddenly be given voting rights - even before they've resiliently settled into the free world - then we are devaluing the duty & right to vote While we're at it, why not let hormonal 14 tear olds, or tantrum-driven toddlers & infants vote? I hate to say this, but the emotional quotient of at least some felons are just the same as that of teens & angry 2 year olds, displaying the self-absorbed, impulsive tendencies w/c made them destructive felons in the 1st place! Ex-felons like Steve Huerta who have shown over the YEARS that they've clearly learned & matured deserve the right to vote. Past felons turned brilliant lawyers (that takes YEARS of study & practice!) deserve voting rights & bar licenses too. Felons who blame everyone but themselves for their criminality should not vote.

This should not be left up to the states to decide. In Vermont and Maine they can vote from prison. Somewhere else-- never. It's unfair. Especially in this day of plea bargaining many "ex-felons" may not even be guilty.

I wish the groups mentioned success - and also the other groups, including some conservative groups, pushing to end the problem of our prison addiction. Wasting taxpayer money by locking up too many people might end faster if we let people who were imprisoned in warehouses participate in effective civic action. It's cheaper to taxpayers to help re-integrate offenders than to keep paying their room and board year over year. The failed War on Drugs, the punitive Three Strikes Laws and the increasing value of the prison industry as a source of jobs, especially in rural areas, has put the US in first place in incarceration rates in the world. http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_population_rate?fi... The for-profit prison boom "saves" money by skimping things that hurts profits, even if it results in perpetuating the release/re-arrest/re-imprison cycle - expensive to taxpayers and ruinous to families and neighborhoods of the prison population. Some people's desire to make prison purely punitive aids this industry. Lock-em-up! is money for the jailer, expensive to society. If you look at US states by their incarceration rates, most states with > the US average of 910 adult prisoners per 100,000 adult population are not wealthy and not blue states. But many of them also have pushed other laws to make it harder for the poor to vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_and_c...

"But many conservative groups fiercely oppose the changes, arguing that people need to first prove that they are upstanding members of society before they can vote." That can apply for other people in addition to felons. What about that godless athiest? What about that homeless loser? What about that poorly educated highschool graduate? What about that isolated farmer? What about that nurdy engineer? What about that glib salesman? None of them deserve the right to vote because they are all morally deplorable. They need to prove that they are truly understand, by, let's say earning a billion bucks, before they can vote for the president. I don't like the comment that Trump is less moral than a felon, because that still implies some of us can be deprived of their voting right, which is a dangerous idea.

people who have "paid" for their crimes should, must, be fully reinstated into society. it is good for everybody. at the most simple level, having a disenfranchised, angry underclass is not only unbefitting an enlightened, democratic society, it's plain dangerous.

There is nothing more Christian than redemption and forgiveness, hard to see how anyone that claims to be influenced by faith going against this movement. Unless, of course, they are just old, angry, white hypocrites.

Felons include white collar criminals (Ponzi schemers, stock manipulators, embezzlers, labor law breakers, etc.) whose choices have destroyed the economic futures of workers and investors they callously ripped off. Child abusers/molesters, rapists, drunk drivers that kill/maim others are felons too, whose victims & families need years of therapy to heal. Since both physically violent and financially/psychologically destructive felons that are born or naturalized US citizens cannot be deported after they are released from prison - but can still possibly find at least modestly paying work, and pay some taxes from earnings in legitimate occupations or self-employment that do not bar felons . . . Perhaps a healthy compromise is that the released felon must stay 100% crime-free for 7 to 10 years after their prison release. It's the same as bankruptcy filers having to wait 7 years before applying for credit. If someone humbly stays on the straight & narrow while positively adapting to life on the outside for 7 or more Easters, then the potential for recidivism into illegal/immoral/destructive personal & professional behaviors has likely gone away enough to trust the person to be a fellow US voter. Otherwise, it is offensive and pointless to allow convicted felons to vote while serving their prison sentences (their rehabilitation is not yet complete!) or immediately vote while they are still struggling to re-integrate into society (the recidivism rate is high!).

There is no moral argument against restoring voting right for felons. We already decided that treason and waging war on America was insufficient to bar the Confederate traitors from voting. And no felon today has ever sunk as low as Johnny Reb. Johnny Reb killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Johnny Reb committed mass treason. Johnny Reb waged war on America to eliminate us as a nation. So don't bother even raising the issue of the morality, don't waste our time with felons proving they're now responsible citizens. If those concerns were irrelevant for Johnny Reb and his fellow traitors, they're irrelevant for all felons today. And I mean ALL felons.

Felons who have paid the price for their crimes should be given every reason to stay out of prison, with the same rights as the more "righteous" of us who either play by the rules or have not yet been caught bending them.

}}} for the Democratic Party Says it all. While I am not absolutely against felons getting their rights back, most of them should stay on the no franchise list.

"But many conservative groups fiercely oppose the changes, arguing that people need to first prove that they are upstanding members of society before they can vote." How do they prove it? How CAN they prove it in an era when a lying, philandering, swindler runs the country?

If the goal is for everyone to vote to include illiterates, people that don't know the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni or a Saudi and a Syrian, people that can't find Afghanistan on a map and people that think the last tax law gave the poor a greater benefit that the rich then by all means let the felons vote. In fact, since they pay sales taxes, one could argue that illegal aliens should vote. Why not especially since they have children in the schools and consume health services and other government services. They should have a say in how these services are distributed. On the other hand perhaps some consideration should be given to a national test on current events and issues that directly affect our nation and those that fail it should not be allowed to vote or hold office. Had we something like that some of our office holders, perhaps even our president, would not have been permitted to run for office or vote. And it may be a large proportions of our felons might not pass the test either. So do we have responsible voting on the issues or just popularity contests decided by the amount of TV coverage?

The fact that ex-felons cannot participate in our democracy is shameful. As a nation we do not believe in rehabilitation for those convicted of crimes. If we did, our system would provide individuals with a future beyond their mistakes. It doesn't. Instead, a prison record essentially ensures that a convicted felon's debt to society is never paid in full. If you have served your time, paid your debts, you should be able to turn the page and start fresh. The fact that we refuse to allow others to atone for their sins by denying them employment or the ability to participate in civic life reveals more about our inability to forgive than it does the character of the guilty.

So now the victims and the perpetrators are in the same party voting side by side for the same interests? And what interests are those? What are the political issues felons are most concerned about? Bad schools? And does a "low-level" felon also mean that their victims are also low-level? Someone who hasn't paid taxes in a while because of incarceration should not be able to vote on how my honest hard earned tax dollars should be used. Plain and simple.