Should people with CRIMINAL RECORDS have the right to VOTE?*DizzyME*

Should prisoners or people with a criminal record have the right to vote?

In the United States someone with a criminal record can be barred from voting-- not only while serving a sentence, but also while on parole, on probation or, in some states, after completing a sentence.

Human Rights Watch estimated in 1998 that 3.9 million Americans were unable to vote because of a criminal conviction, of whom 1.4 million were ex-convicts who had served their sentences in full.

In 10 U.S. states Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and Wyoming, people with criminal records are denied the right to vote for life.

In fact, the permanent removal of voting rights of some 400,000 Floridians with criminal records may have changed the outcome of the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Almost one-third of black men in Florida couldn't vote because they had criminal records.

In Arizona and Maryland, the right to vote is denied to those convicted of a second offence.

Tennessee denies the right to vote to those convicted before 1986 and Washington denies those convicted before 1984.

In Texas, offenders cannot vote for two years after their sentences are completed.

Only Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont allow prisoners to vote.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/features/prison_vote.html

I brought up this topic because there was a discussion on talk radio about a group that is trying to make it legal for death row inmates to vote.

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