During the midterm elections of 2018, a law was passed (specifically an amendment for the constitution of a state) in Florida that allows restoring the voting rights for people with previous convictions of serious crimes (all felons except rapists and killers that is) after these people they get out of jail. While Amendment Four passed with more than sixty percent of the vote for reasons such as, there is still much controversy over the policy of allowing felons to vote.
Many people now believe that the law is not constitutional and the concept of allowing criminals to vote is not fair, while other citizens are sure that this policy will make our society more democratic. I think that rules such as the law in Florida should be in all the US. and most felons who are not in jail should vote because this practice will increase voter turnout, and uphold the principles of the national constitution.
For starters, 137.5 million people voted in the elections for the president of the USA in 2016. This means that only 61.4 percent of the number of adult citizens gave ballots in this country to vote and this is a reduction of 63.6 percent in the 2008 elections. However, the problem of insufficient electoral participation would be solved if more felons voted.
In 2016, there were approximately 6.1 million people who can not vote because they lived in states like Florida, Kentucky, and Iowa that restrict the right to vote permanently and there were also millions more people who can not vote in states like Wyoming and Colorado that restrict this Right temporarily for a few years after the felons get out of jail. If these people could vote in 2016, the voter turnout percentage would increase by at least four percent.
It is even possible that this change could have transformed the election results completely. It is necessary that a democratic society selects its leaders with elections that are representative of the population. If more felons vote, the electoral participation will increase, and therefore the elections will be more representative. However, there are many people who hold the position that most voters are not a beneficial thing for our country because if someone commits a crime against the law, that person should not have a role in making the law with their vote. According to an article from The Heritage Foundation, many laws are currently being considered in the US on the legalization of drugs such as marijuana, if drug addicts and drug dealers in the past vote in elections as referendums to decide if a drug is legal or not, they can introduce a conflict of interest in elections that can hurt US people.
My opinion is that the problem with that position is that if a person who was a drug addict or drug trafficker leaves prison, he or she deserves an opportunity to create a different life and we should not consider it as if they were still criminals. That is why I hope that the governments of states like Iowa, Kentucky and others who restrict felon voting privileges follow the example of Florida and allow felons to vote so that they can make our government reflect the opinions of all adult citizens better and be more democratic.
Amendment number eight in the National Constitution of the United States prohibits governments in the US from using punishments that are "cruel and unusual" against people in the country. I believe that restricting, or in some cases eliminating, the right to vote for felons after their time in jail is a "cruel and unusual" punishment and therefore states must remove that practice to comply with the US Constitution. According to scholarly reports from American University, the practice of restricting the freedom to vote in states like Tennessee and Florida (before the new law in 2018) violates amendment number eight because the right to vote is protected by Constitution and it is not fair to eliminate this right and punish some American citizen after he or she completes his legal punishment in prison.
People who support the law of deprivation of voting rights for felons argue that amendment number fourteen says that a person may lose their liberties after "due process of law" and the instance of a felon losing his right to vote It is an example of this. However, in my opinion, "due process of law" is responsible for giving justice and punishment for specific crimes and nothing else. Because felons are citizens, and if a felon has completed his/her time in prison, why are they being punished forever if they already serve time for their crimes? Aside from cases of a felon committing a crime with legal consequences after his time in jail, as a rapist who is now legally a sex offender, many free felons in the US must have the constitutional right to vote.
To conclude, when people in Florida passed a policy of allowing felons to vote, they did not do a bad, unfair, or unconstitutional thing. Because the right to vote is a very important freedom for every adult citizen in the US, and because more people voting in elections is very important to make our society more democratic, we need a country that allows as many people as possible to participate in the formation of our government.
