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> Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crime

by yokaze 6y ago

> Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crimes and taking a harder look at why anyone is being locked up for non-violent crimes. They are orthogonal problems. Solving one doesn't solve the other. And disenfranchisement is creating problems as shown in the article, while it tries to solve a problem, which is practically non-existent thanks to representative democracy. First off, trying to delineate between who is allowed to vote and who except on most general rules (e.g. citizens over X years) is more likely than not to be used and abused to shape the electorate. The details are well documented, as in the article. On the other hand, what does excluding criminals trying to solve? You don't want them to decide what will happen in the country, but that is why there is a representative democracy. They are only allowed to vote for one of their "betters", which will take the decisions. (The classism was to my knowledge partly intentional in design). And their numbers are low enough, that they won't be able to chose a representation, which overrules the non-incarcerated > Some people should not have a voice in society - like raping murderers. But people running a business making millions addicted to opioids? It is not complicated to condemn criminals, but it is complicated to set up a system, which doesn't use that wish for retribution to distort the electorate. And to what end? What objective problem does it solve?

dragonwriter 6y ago
> > Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crimes and taking a harder look at why anyone is being locked up for non-violent crimes. > They are orthogonal problems. Solving one doesn't solve the other. I disagree. If incarcerating people weren't an effective method of both denying people you don't like a vote and stealing their voting power for the people in your state that you aren't excluding through incarceration, there'd be a lot less incentive for mass incarceration. Of course, that's an argument for making voting for the incarcerated the first focus, since it naturally makes it easier to solve the other problem.
- yokaze 6y ago
  That's a good point, they are quite related. Certainly not "orthogonal". Still the reasons for mass-incarceration are multifold and how much the voting rights issue is a motivation for it is anybodies guess. There are also simply economical reasons. I still think, it is sensible to address both issues. Addressing one will likely help the other, but I have my doubts that it will be as effective as addressing both.

by yokaze 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> > Rather than spend energy arguing about letting incarcerated people vote, it seems more useful to make sure that nobody is being locked up for victimless crimes and taking a harder look at why anyone is being locked up for non-violent crimes. > They are orthogonal problems. Solving one doesn't solve the other. I disagree. If incarcerating people weren't an effective method of both denying people you don't like a vote and stealing their voting power for the people in your state that you aren't excluding through incarceration, there'd be a lot less incentive for mass incarceration. Of course, that's an argument for making voting for the incarcerated the first focus, since it naturally makes it easier to solve the other problem.

yokaze 6y ago
That's a good point, they are quite related. Certainly not "orthogonal". Still the reasons for mass-incarceration are multifold and how much the voting rights issue is a motivation for it is anybodies guess. There are also simply economical reasons. I still think, it is sensible to address both issues. Addressing one will likely help the other, but I have my doubts that it will be as effective as addressing both.