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Why Do Ex-Felons Lose Their Right To Vote

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United States citizens with a criminal background should be allowed to vote in their state of residency

Ontreal Harris
Professor Ross
Composition II

Reference
Shaw, Jerry. “When Did Ex-Felons Lose Their Rights to Vote? A History.” Newsmax. Newsmax Media, Inc. http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/felons-voting-rights-history/2015/04/16/id/638889/
"Disfranchisement." West 's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005. Retrieved May 01, 2016 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3437701425.html
“Felon Voting.” ProCon. 2008. May 01, 2016 from ProCon.org: http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000668
“Felon voting rights.” National Confederence of State. 2016. May 01, 2016 from
NCSL.org: http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx#background …show more content…

Observably, the Jim Crow laws passed by southern states effectively disfranchised African-Americans from the late nineteenth century until well into the 20th century. In the ongoing of Reconstruction, after the Civil War, African Americans in the south briefly enjoyed voting privileges because they felt nearly equal to whites. However, around 1890, legally sanctioned disfranchisement occurred abruptly. For example, during the years’ right after the Civil War, African Americans made up as much as forty-four percent of the registered electorate in Louisiana, but by 1920, they constituted only 1 percent of the electorate. In Mississippi, almost seventy percent of eligible African Americans were registered to vote in 1867 and after 1890, less than six percent were eligible to vote. There were similar decreases in the percentages of elected black officials in all Southern states. They employed disfranchisement devices such as poll taxes, property tests, literacy tests, and all-white primaries to prevent African Americans from voting. On the surface, such laws discriminated on the basis of education and property ownership other than race, but their practical and intended effect was to block African Americans from the …show more content…

Other forms of disfranchisement, including the disfranchisement of criminals, remain controversial. Since the early 1990s, all but three states prohibited imprisoned offenders from voting. Thirty-five states disfranchise offenders on probation or parole, and fourteen disfranchise ex-offenders for life. Because a disproportionate share of convicted criminals are non-white, some have argued that such laws constitute a racially discriminatory voting barrier that is as pernicious as poll taxes and literacy tests. Many state criminal disfranchisement laws date back to the Reconstruction era, and such laws were often targeted at offenses for which African Americans were disproportionately convicted. For this reason, some groups have called for the reform or removal of criminal

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The removal of this right dehumanizes prisoners. The streets of Texas are filled with blue or white collar criminals on bail or simply waiting for their sentence. Presently, if individual are found guilty of a crime, but they are not given a judicial sentence they are still allowed to vote; why should there be treated differently from convicted criminals who are locked up? However, allowing prisoners to vote while in prison would increase voting turnout and also Texas would gain the reputation of becoming one of the two states that allow prisoners to vote while in prison.

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