Florida passes Amendment Four, restoring voting rights to convicted felons | Hacker News Reader

Florida passes Amendment Four, restoring voting rights to convicted felons

yahoo.com

29 pointsjbegley6 comments

Until recently I had just taken it for granted that it was what we do, but after thinking about it, what's the rationale behind taking away the right to vote when someone is convicted?

A combination of a culture focused around retribution rather than rehabilitation, voter suppression and overt racism.

Felon disenfranchisement tends to hurt the black population more because they're often more egregiously made felons through minor offenses (for example, possession of marijuana). This goes as far back as the Black Codes in the mid-1800s.

Because democracy only works when the voters are good. If a large majority of voters were Nazis then a Hitler would be elected. Similarly, I wouldn't want people who are proven to do something criminal to influence who becomes my leader.

> Because democracy only works when the voters are good. If a large majority of voters were Nazis then a Hitler would be elected. Similarly, I wouldn't want people who are proven to do something criminal to influence who becomes my leader.

Bringing up Nazis is a little more then ironic in this context. Considering the Nazi's passed laws to remove citizenship and prevent voting for a large portion of their population.

On September 15, 1935, at a party rally in Nuremberg, the Nazis announced two new laws that changed who could be a German citizen. The Reich Citizenship Law required that all citizens have German “blood.” As a result, Jews and others lost their rights to citizenship, which not only stripped them of the right to vote but also made them stateless. This meant that they could not get a valid passport for travel between countries or acquire a visa to leave Germany.

Allowing everyone to vote is fundamental to democracy.

So, democracy doesn't work anywhere outside America?

This puts ~1.5 million voters back on the voter rolls in Florida. Will make for an interesting election next time around!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com