Lucas, sign if you agree: No one should ever lose their ability to vote.
Most people with felony convictions temporarily or permanently lose the
ability to vote in the United States. This practice of stripping felons
of their ability to vote, known as felon disenfranchisement, is rooted
in our country’s history of chattel slavery.
Though the 14th Amendment gave newly freed slaves full citizenship rights,
there was an exception. The 13th amendment took away a person’s
ability to vote if they had been found guilty of a crime. Unsurprisingly,
nearly anything black people did became considered a crime.
This system of over-criminalization of communities of color and targeting
them for imprisonment and disenfranchisement continues to this day. Now
however this disenfranchisement has expanded to include poor Americans
of all races, which means the fight for the ability to vote affects every
demographic in America.
Sign if you agree: No one should ever lose their ability to vote.
Some states permanently disenfranchise ex-felons from voting—even
after they've finished their sentence. Others restore their voting
rights once they are off parole & paid all their fines, and some only
if they are considered “non-violent”—a classification
defined by each individual state.
In Maine and Vermont, people with felony convictions never lose the ability to vote.
This should be the law in every state.
Progressive Democrats can change the conversation by calling for an end
to the cadre of racist state based laws regarding felon disenfranchisement.
Let’s stop asking for a sliver of what we know is the right to do.
It’s time to demand that no one ever loses their ability to vote. Period.
Sign if you agree: No one should ever lose their ability to vote.
Keep fighting,
Carissa Miller, Daily Kos