Let everyone vote.  It’s supposed to be an American right, isn’t it?  Voting is part of our argument for American exceptionalism.  We’re always patting ourselves on the back for it.  And we should.  Fair and widespread voting is, by definition, an essential part of any liberal democracy.  That’s why our founders based this new American democracy on the power of voting.  The principle was that when you let everyone vote in their personal interests, we create a democracy in everyone’s interests.

The founders’ vision of voting wasn’t perfect, limiting the vote to white landowners.  Thankfully, time passes, you grow, and we learned new things.  Now the definition of ‘everyone’ includes women, former slaves and their offspring, immigrants, and so on.  And we brag about our democracy just as proudly.

 And then we commit widespread and rampant voter suppression because we’re Americans.  I think mass confusion is part of the American model.

The worst voter suppression in our entire history is the Jim Crow criminal justice system.  After the Civil War, we decided to put as many African Americans in jail as we could, even resorting to lies or pitiful excuses.  Then, as a central part of our terror campaign to dominate and ruin those communities, we stripped their voting rights, both in prison and forever after.  This wasn’t an accident, it was the plan.  Jim Crow laws survived for a century before we, supposedly, all agree that it was immoral, and we changed those laws.

Supposedly.

So why are we still doing that nonsense?  We routinely arrest and jail our black and brown citizens at much higher rates than white people, and we still automatically disfranchise them, usually forever. Can someone explain to me why ‘being in jail’ makes your vote bad?  Do we think they’ll automatically vote for other criminals?  Most of the arguments I hear are variations on “They gave up that right when they committed that horrible crime!”  It’s hard to put a lot of credence in an argument that translates to an angry “Because!”

And we don’t just block prisoners from voting, in eleven states, we don’t let then vote after they’re released, either.  So much for “Paying your debt to society.”  Even in non-felony cases, prisons block voting.  And the argument for this disfranchisement remains an unrepentant “Because!”  That seems arbitrary?  In Florida, Republicans block ex-felons from voting if they have outstanding debts.  Wow.  Will I put my citizenship at risk if I pile up too many parking tickets?  (Probably not, but only if I was white.)

I’ll ask one more time: why shouldn’t prisoners vote?  If we’re worried they’ll vote in their own interests, isn’t that the point?  If we’re saying that we don’t like the way they might vote, we need to re-examine our dedication to democracy itself.  Again, that’s the point.

Maybe I’m wrong, and there are better reasons.  If someone has a more nuanced argument, I’m all ears.  Give it a shot, and I’ll read it.  This is what comments are for.

Until then, I say we let everyone vote: white people, brown people, women, felons, students, handicapped, ex-felons, seniors, and even ordinary criminals.  Let everyone vote. 

I mean, unless you don’t want representative democracy.