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Interesting. But UK was not the only country in Europe that does not allow inmates to vote. The list includes Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Liechtenstein

Interesting. But UK was not the only country in Europe that does not allow inmates to vote. The list includes Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Liechtenstein and Russia. Three of them belong to EU and do not plan to leave or change their stance on this issue. Allowing inmates to vote is a strange proposal for me. Could we then argue that a leader of a criminal organization should be able to keep leading it from the prison? Eliminating the imprisoned from the society is one of the core principles of the imprisonment and it feels therefore counter productive to let inmates to vote, especially on local government election where a single vote counts the most. Now if imprisonment would be altered for example to an involuntary reeducation and readaptation program, then keeping the right to vote would make much more sense.

bobthepanda 5y ago
The EHCR is not saying that all prisoners should always be able to vote, but that a blanket ban on prisoner voting without considering the circumstances or whether or not it is proportionate violates human rights. Wikipedia has this to say on the topic, at least in the US: > Opponents have argued that such disfranchisement restricts and conflicts with principles of universal suffrage.[5] It can affect civic and communal participation in general.[1] Opponents argue that felony disenfranchisement can create political incentives to skew criminal law in favor of disproportionately targeting groups who are political opponents of those who hold power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t... One can plainly see that in the US this has a highly racial component. It's not hard to see how this could be turned against any group of "others" targeted by the government. Humans Rights Watch, 1998: https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/vote/usvot98o-01.htm https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/vote/usvot98o-0... > State disenfranchisement laws have a dramatically disproportionate racial impact. Thirteen percent of all adult black men—1.4 million—are disenfranchised, representing one-third of the total disenfranchised population and reflecting a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven times the national average. Election voting statistics offer an approximation of the political importance of black disenfranchisement: 1.4 million black men are disenfranchised compared to 4.6 million black men who voted in 1996.23

bobthepanda 5y ago

The EHCR is not saying that all prisoners should always be able to vote, but that a blanket ban on prisoner voting without considering the circumstances or whether or not it is proportionate violates human rights. Wikipedia has this to say on the topic, at least in the US: > Opponents have argued that such disfranchisement restricts and conflicts with principles of universal suffrage.[5] It can affect civic and communal participation in general.[1] Opponents argue that felony disenfranchisement can create political incentives to skew criminal law in favor of disproportionately targeting groups who are political opponents of those who hold power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_t... One can plainly see that in the US this has a highly racial component. It's not hard to see how this could be turned against any group of "others" targeted by the government. Humans Rights Watch, 1998: https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/vote/usvot98o-01.htm https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/vote/usvot98o-0... > State disenfranchisement laws have a dramatically disproportionate racial impact. Thirteen percent of all adult black men—1.4 million—are disenfranchised, representing one-third of the total disenfranchised population and reflecting a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven times the national average. Election voting statistics offer an approximation of the political importance of black disenfranchisement: 1.4 million black men are disenfranchised compared to 4.6 million black men who voted in 1996.23