ACLU Of Tennessee joins fight to restore voting rights of felons

[mlr710]

This is an issue that I do believe needs to be confronted. I think its unconstitutional that a person who has served their sentence should be without the right to vote for the duration of their life. Many states have this restriction. If a person has served their sentence, how is it justified that they shouldn't EVER be allowed to vote again?

Excerpt -
"The ACLU brought its lawsuit on behalf of three individuals - Terence Johnson, Jim Harris and Alexander Friedman - who have completed their terms of imprisonment, parole, and probation for their offenses. Johnson and Harris are ineligible to vote because they owe child support for children they currently have custody of."

Full article:
ACLU sues over Tennessee’s felon disenfranchisement law‏ | Clarksville, TN Online

[1evitavresnoc]

They should be allowed to vote again. However, many of these people have not fully finished their debt to society by paying all fines, serving all probation and not being involved with the justice system in any fashion. If they meet all of these requirements, then I believe they have a right to have their voting rights restored.

[DBlack]

Every citizen should have voting rights as long as they are not incarcerated, or serving any part of their sentence (probation or parole).

By stripping those that have paid their debt to society, you have severely hindered any chance of reform advantageous to those still under the boot of the justice system; If there is abuse or rights violations in the prison systems, who better to lead the fight in brining about some positive change than those who endured it, paid their debt, and move on to be productive citizens and activists in society?

The system is basically designed to albeit remove incarcerated or convicted citizens from the mainstream avenues of productive citizenry. And that is the bigger crime here.

[JABOOM]

There are laws in place where you can have your past record erased if you know where to look............ask Bush

[Sasori]

The law was placed there, imo, to shrink the roles of those with voting rights in order to only include 'the fit or responsible voter', which basically means only those they wish to serve while forcing the rest to abide by the stated rules.

I believe in the method approached by the originators of the republic system, which basically states that after you have served all time and paid applied penalties to your crimes against the nation, you are fully restored of your rights. The way it is currently done, you will only be a second class citizen who have only minimal rights restored regardless if you 'paid your debt to society'.