Felony disenfranchisement

Felony disenfranchisement is the exclusion from voting of people otherwise eligible to vote (known as disfranchisement) due to conviction of a criminal offense, usually restricted to the more serious class of crimes: felonies. Jurisdictions vary as to whether they make such disfranchisement permanent, or restore suffrage after a person has served a sentence, or completed parole or probation. Felony disenfranchisement is one among the collateral consequences of criminal conviction and the loss of rights due to conviction for criminal offense.

Opponents have argued that such disfranchisement restricts and conflicts with principles of universal suffrage. It can affect civic and communal participation in general. Opponents argue that felony disenfranchisement can create dangerous political incentives to skew criminal law in favour of disproportionately targeting groups who are political opponents of those who hold power.

In Western countries, felony disenfranchisement can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman traditions: disenfranchisement was commonly imposed as part of the punishment on those convicted of "infamous" crimes, as part of their "civil death", whereby these persons would lose all rights and claim to property. Most medieval common law jurisdictions developed punishments that provided for some form of exclusion from the community for felons, ranging from execution on sight to exclusion from community processes.

The United States is among the most punitive nations in the world when it comes to denying the vote to those who have been convicted of a felony offence.

In the U.S., the constitution implicitly permits the States to adopt rules about disenfranchisement "for participation in rebellion, or other crime", by the fourteenth amendment, section 2. It is up to the states to decide which crimes could be ground for disenfranchisement, and they are not formally bound to restrict this to felonies; however, in most cases, they do. Felons are allowed to vote in most states of the US. Between 1996 and 2008 twenty-eight states changed their laws on felon voting rights, mostly to restore rights or to simplify the process of restoration. Since 2008 state laws have continued to shift, both curtailing and restoring voter rights, sometimes over short periods of time within the same state.

...
Wikipedia