Felons getting the right to vote

`On April 5, 2007, Governor Crist persuaded Florida’s clemency board to restore voting rights to about 800,000 former prisoners.

Crist’s action was vigorously opposed by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, as well as by former governor Jeb Bush. Under the new rules, about 80 percent of the disenfranchised whose crimes were not classified as “violent” will automatically have heir voting rights restored, so long as they have paid any restitution to victims and have no pending criminal charges.

This measure will largely exclude about two hundred thousand people defined as “violent career criminals,” murderers and sexual offenders, who must submit to an investigation of their cases and a hearing before a clemency board. In practical terms, the vast majority of these former prisoners will never vote again. This raises a basic question about the “limits” of American democracy, and the danger in restricting the electoral franchise. . . .

Personally, I still think that it is strange that this is the only "right" that Democrats want to restore to felons. All the information that I have seen indicates that felons care much more about other issues (jobs, self defense). But what baffles me completely is how some people such as this author think that American Democracy is at stake because we are not letting murderers and rapists vote. What is the deal there? The same people who push for voting rights being restored to violent felons would never think of restoring the right to own a gun to those who were convicted of even just simple misdemeanors.

Thanks to Jack Langer for sending me this link.