Someone should sign up the Times-Union editors for this
listserv--if not to inform their policy views on felon
disfranchisement, at least to alert them to Professor
Volokh's objection to the phrase "paying one's debts to
society."  Can we expect a letter to the editor?

(I note that, although I disagreed with most of
Professor Volokh's arguments in the recent on-line
debate, I do think that "paying one's debts" is at best
an imprecise conception of criminal punishment and that
it's hard to explain why the "debts" in question
include imprisonment, parole, and probation, but not
other consequences provided by ex ante legislation.  I
quickly came to regret using that phrase during the
listserv debate, as I should have recognized that it
might be interpreted as a shorthand for the "they've
paid their debt, so let them vote" argument--which was
not the argument I intended to make.)

On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:21:01 -0800 (PST),
"ban@richardwinger.com" wrote:

Subject: Let ex-cons vote  Editorial  TimesUnion.com
February 23, 2005 
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:37:55 -0500

            Let ex-cons vote

      Those who have paid their debt to society
shouldn't be disenfranchised
because of their past


      First published: Wednesday, February 23, 2005

      Congress has some unfinished business to take
care of, dating back to
last year's election and even the much disputed one
of 2000. It's all about
getting more people to vote, and making sure their
votes count when they do.
      There are the easy provisions that should be
beyond dispute, such as
making Election Day a federal holiday to encourage
voting. Other provisions
in the Count Every Vote Act would require paper
receipts for votes and
authorize $500 million to help states upgrade and
modernize their voting
systems. More harmless politics.

      But then there's the more contentious matter
of allowing ex-convicts
to vote. Only that, too, should be no more
threatening to anyone than a
national day off to vote. The 4.7 million Americans
who are kept from voting
because of their criminal records are victims of
nothing short of
discrimination. To serve a prison term, followed by
probation or parole, is
to pay the required debt to society.

      This is a problem that's worse in some states
than in others. A study
by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research
group advocating more
liberal sentencing policies, takes particular aim at
14 states where the
voting laws pose something dangerously close to
disenfranchisement for
ex-convicts.

      Of those states, only in Florida have a
significant number of
ex-convicts been able to win back the right to vote.
Even there, though,
that often involved prolonged court battles. In the
others, states have
succeeded in erecting a series of burdensome
requirements too daunting for
potential voters to complete, according to the
study. In those 14 states,
just 3 percent of people who lost their voting
rights regained them.

      New York, for a welcome change, is not on this
particular list of
states with arcane and regressive election laws. But
one of its senators is
nonetheless at the forefront to make voting rights
for former criminals the
law of the land. Hillary Rodham Clinton is among
those sponsoring
legislation that would clear up the confusion that
only got worse when the
Supreme Court last year declined to hear a case that
could have resolved
differing lower court rulings on how much power
states have to restrict
felons from voting.

      Only with such provisions banned in every
state is the Count Every
Vote Act that Mrs. Clinton is pushing truly worthy
of its lofty name.

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