Pros And Cons Of Felony Disenfranchisement

Felony disenfranchisement is legally revoking citizens, who have been imprisoned for felony charges, of their right to vote. States are currently allowed, by law, to forbid felons from voting. In thirty-eight states, including the District of Columbia, felons’ rights to vote are restored immediately after they have completed their sentences and probational consequences (“Felony Voting Rights”). In other states, ex-cons must go through a process to get their voting rights back, which they have to apply for (“Felony Voting Rights”). Felony disenfranchisement is another way for our government to discriminate racially because African-American males are statistically the most affected by this law. I have numerous statists and a personal story from

my own father to support my claim.
This penalty dates back to something Europeans called “civil death,” which also resulted in criminals losing the right to vote, and was brought to America by English colonists (“Felon Voting Rights”). During the Jim Crow law era in 1894, a newspaper article stated they fully agreed with taking away the black man’s right to vote before “white votes be swept away at the polls by the black vote” (“Staples”). In 1901, the state of Alabama decided to magnify its disenfranchisement laws, expanding it to misdemeanors and even charges that were not punishable by law (“Staples”). In this time period, it was very popular for a black person to be arrested and charged with made up crimes.
The disenfranchisement laws flourished in both Northern and Southern states where large black populations were cast in the role of eternal outsiders, and proposals for allowing former felons to vote were often cast as heralding the end of civilization. The debate looks a lot different in Maine and Vermont, states where there are no black populations (“Staples”).
Currently in Alabama, felons lose their right to vote permanently if they were prosecuted of murder, rape, incest, sexual crime against children, and treason; others may apply to have the state decide if their right to vote will be restored (“Felon Voting ProCon.org”). 26.2 percent of Alabama’s citizens are African-American (“United”). In the state of Maine, the population of African-Americans is 1.2 percent (“United”). In this state, convicted felons use absentee ballots to vote while they are in prison (“Felon Voting ProCon.org”).
Felony disenfranchisement takes away the right to vote from one in every thirteen black persons, which is four times more than any other race (“Staples”).

In 2013, the total number of prisoners was 1, 516, 879 (“Felon Voting ProCon.org”). 549,100 of these prisoners were African-American, and 37.2 percent of the total number of prisoners were African-American males (“Felon Voting ProCon.org”). This statistic clearly shows whom the government is trying to hurt the most with felony disenfranchisement. I do understand why most people feel this is a preposterous argument because African-American males are not the only people affected by this law. A perfect example explaining my response to this counterargument is what Alabama’s constitutional convention president said to his fellow constitution convention board members in the debate to expand their disenfranchisement laws in 1901 (“Staples”). He said to them, “the crime of wife-beating alone would disqualify 60% of the Negroes” (“Staples”). By saying this, he admits that blacks are not the only race that abuses their wives, but they would be prosecuted heavier than any other race. This shows that in order to keep the white vote in the majority, despite the casualties, they would do whatever was

necessary.
My own father is a victim of felony disenfranchisement. In the 2008 election all of my family and friends gathered to watch the news as the ballots from each state were counted. There was a lot of laughter and joy in the room, but my dad sat away in the distance, not engaging. I wandered over to keep him company because I could tell that something was bothering him. I tried to make conversation by asking, “Who’d you vote for, Daddy?” He responded, “Nobody.” I did not understand because I had heard him in debates with others, many times, defending Barack Obama and saying the words “yes we can!” about one hundred times a day. He said that he was not allowed, and at the time I did not understand what that meant. In my father’s youth, he followed the wrong crowd. This crowd led him to the wrong place at the wrong time, and resulted in him being wrongfully prosecuted for something he did not partake in. He is still paying for his mistakes and lack of better judgment from his teenage years well into his adult life. As I remember the look on his face, I now understand the emotions my father was feeling. Not only was he stripped of his right to vote, he was stripped of his freedom to decide the fate of his country and his family. Everything that his ancestors had fought for him to have was taken away, and he was no longer a part of the United States’s democracy.
The black man, historically, has never had it easy in America; they are known for being overworked and underpaid. Disenfranchisement laws cannot be penalized for the amount of black males that have committed felony crimes, but they can be penalized for using the already corrupt system as an assistant for what they are doing against African-American males. Taking away the black man’s right to vote is unconstitutional and is definitely serving the purpose it was created for: to take away their power in this country and make them feel inhumane.