Felony Voting

Felony Disenfranchisement
A convicted murderer, child molester, drug offender, and thief have at least two things in common- they are felons and they cannot vote in the state of Florida ever again in their natural life. The stripping of the right to vote from felons and ex-felons is called disenfranchisement. Other states that practice this include Alabama, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming. This makes an estimated 3.9 million U.S. citizens that are disenfranchised, including over one million who have fully completed their sentences. Doing this does not preserve the purity of the ballot box, does not act as a reasonable form of punishment, but does act as a form of political oppression and is a violation of our right to Democracy.  
The idea of preserving the purity of the ballot box is that voting should be reserved for those with high morals and good social standings. Felons are not seen as socially healthy, morally just, or good citizens and are therefore not fit enough to vote.   If these are the pre-requisites for being able to vote then we might as well throw our idea of democracy out the window. If anyone wants to argue that our political voice should only include those who are mentally stable, virtuous, upstanding citizens, then I would ask that person to go home and take a long look in the mirror before continuing on with that argument. To prove my point, studies of self-reported crime show that crime, even serious crime, is quite widespread throughout the so-called "law-abiding" population. One study asked 1,020 adult males and 670 adult females (mostly from New York State) which of forty-nine offenses they had committed. "Ninety-one percent of the respondents admitted they had committed one or more offenses for which they might have received jail or prison sentences.... Sixty-four percent of the males and 27 percent of the females committed at least one felony for which they had not been apprehended. (Theo...