Historically, losing the right to vote was one of the stigmas loaded onto a convict’s burden by the criminal justice system. In recent years, as the prison population in this country became increasingly black and Latino, liberal reformers began questioning whether stripping a released felon of his voting franchise really made sense. Some conservative Republicans suspected a partisan ploy: If felons come from a population that normally votes almost monolithically Democratic—and that description certainly fits African Americans—well, wasn’t this simply a partisan attempt to garner votes?

Political gamesmanship is part of it, to be sure, but there is also a compelling logic at the heart of the argument that felons should have their rights restored. That reasoning goes like this: After paying their “debt to society,” in the old parlance, government’s goal for these individuals—unless we want to see them back behind bars—should be nothing less than having them take their places in the fabric of American life. This entails reconnecting with their families, securing gainful employment, and becoming productive members in the social lives of their community and their nation. In the United States, implicit in this social contract is the right to vote. Thus, permanently stripping a former inmate of the voting franchise seems counterproductive to society’s larger, restorative, goal in which we all have a stake.

Not everyone making this case is a liberal Democrat with partisan designs. One of the political leaders at the forefront of the movement to restore the franchise to felons is Republican Governor Charlie Crist of Florida. He personally pushed through reforms that have conferred voting eligibility on 110,000 former felons in his state. Fewer than 9,000 of them have registered to vote so far, but if you think back to the 2000 Florida recount (eventually won by George W. Bush by fewer than 600 votes), you realize that 9,000 new voters isn’t nothing. Moreover, energetic education and registration drives are being spearheaded by groups such as the NAACP and the ACLU, to get these newly eligible felons to sign up for the voting rolls. This activity is taking place not just in Florida but in several other possible swing states, including Virginia, where Governor Timothy M. Kaine has expedited gubernatorial review for felons seeking to have their voting rights restored.  

Stateline.org, a respected non-profit, non-partisan news service supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, has an excellent primer on this issue this morning, which you can read by clicking here. And two days from now, The Sentencing Project in Washington is set to release a report showing that some three-quarters of a million franchised felons in more than a dozen states will be eligible to vote in 2008. I will link to that report when it is made publicly available on Thursday.

Is all this another hidden advantage for Senator Obama? I think it might be. But whatever your political leanings, I also believe that restoring the voting rights of those who have done their time in prison supersedes politics—and is a healthy trend for our nation. We all have a stake in having all people take their place in American society. (In the civil, bi-partisan spirit of this blog, however, here are the views of someone who disagrees with me.) I’m hardly alone, though. Charlie Crist is one of Senator McCain’s favorite governors—and would likely be offered a cabinet position in a McCain administration.

Another "Charlie," writer Charles Dickens put it this way:  "A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by confinement..." What we believe in this country, what Dickens believed, was in something different; namely, in the restorative power of  redemption. Does casting a ballot in a historic presidential election aide in that cause? I believe it might. Anyway, what's the harm? Voting isn't a harmful or threatening act. It's an affirming one.