Electioneering : Should Felons be Allowed to Vote?

This article, “In Alabama, a Fight to Regain Voting Rights Some Felons Never Lost,” is simply rank with issues that often don’t want to be talked about. Should felons be allowed to vote? Officials in Alabama are having a hard time with this questions — even if the law states that some should.Because of a quirk in its Constitution, Alabama disqualifies from voting only those who have committed a “felony involving moral turpitude.”

Even though some felons are able to vote, the regulatory bodies are still not interested in publicizing this fact. There isn’t even a list to say what crimes constitute a “felony involving moral turpitude.” It’s all up for interpretation.

In theory, one would think we should encourage members of the prison system and ex-cons to vote, shouldn’t we? Doesn’t voting mean that these Americans are taking an interest in their society and attempting to control their fate? (however far fetched that idea might be, of course) I know that there are a number of issues in play, but keeping an enormous section of the population from participating in this process seems to be a grave mistake.

“There’s no more anti-Republican bill than this,” said Marty Connors, the chairman of the state Republican Party, according to news reports at the time. “As frank as I can be, we’re opposed to it because felons don’t tend to vote Republican.”

Nationally, 5.3 million people are barred from voting because of their criminal history, according to a 2004 estimate cited by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice policy group.

And the Ohio story continues…

Ohio Officials at Odds over Paper Ballot

The story continues to unfold in Ohio.  In an effort to provide an alternative to the touch screen voting system, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner moved to have paper ballots as an additional option.  Not only would it provide a paper method for voters not confident in the electronic machine, but also would alleviate long lines as they expect high voter turnout.  Other county officials, however, have recently been awarded a retraining order against moving forward with this plan since it could cost certain counties as much as $68,000 to put in place.  After such chaos and crisis of recent events, though, how could any county official not feel that this money is a necessity?  What is the price of voter confidence?  Is it worth $68,000 for a county to provide an accurate voting process?  It still baffles me that some in Ohio still believe in the digital systems.

All of these articles about the election process continue to bring me back to the issue of consistency across counties, states, and the nation.  It just seems backwards that we have a nation that insists on not working together to solve the problems of the collective voting process.  There is such a thing as compromise.  The states need not lose their independence simply by combining efforts for election reform.

Caucus vs. Primary

Has America Outgrown the Caucus?

This article takes on the institution of the caucus and breaks down exactly why it either needs to be ousted or reformed. Frankly, I wonder if the average American even realizes what the caucus process really is. I know that I myself was ignorant to how this method was different. The fact that participating in a caucus can require up to 2 hours of one’s day and there is no ability to really participate from afar by absentee ballot is very concerning. The article mentions that these requirements and others lend the elections low turnout (New Hampshire Primary had 29% voter turnout vs. the 6% in the Iowa Caucus) and those who do participate are often the elderly who have very strong opinions in one direction or another.

I understand the idea of tradition and I understand the fact that the parties will pay for the caucus and the state has to pay for the primary, but I also believe that voter turnout is important at every level and the importance of allowing absentee outweighs any pros found in the caucus process. Tova Andrea Wang, Democracy Fellow at The Century Foundation gives options for reform (if the process cannot be done away with altogether) in this article that should be given serious thought. All in all, it is just one more level of confusion in this whole voting thing. I appreciate states rights, but come on, we need to move in a direction of consistency if we want Americans to come close to understanding the process of governance.