An estimated 6.1 million citizens were not allowed to vote November 8th

These people are citizens of the United States.  They were born to and raised by citizens of the United States.  They are allowed to work and pay taxes, but they are not allowed to vote for who they want to represent them in state and federal government.  The following articles show why these citizens need your help. 

Below you will find: “Such a policy resembles the Constitution’s notorious three-fifths clause, which denied slaves the right to vote but counted them in the Census for the purposes of amassing more pro-slavery representatives.

and

This is an extremely troubling practice with sad political implications. Just like the days of the three-fifths clause, modern day prison-based gerrymandering means politicians lack an incentive to reduce the number of prisons in their district since they benefit politically from them—and they benefit without having to listen to the needs and concerns of those imprisoned."

https://progressiveprisonproject.blogspot.com/2016/11/why-prisoners-and-ex-felons-should-retain-the-right-to-vote-by-gregg-d-caruso-guest-blogger.html

In 1985, the divestment campaign educated Americans about the brutality and racism of the South African regime and demanded that U.S. businesses not make money on the backs of apartheid’s victims. In 2015, anti-prison campaigners call attention to the brutality of mass incarceration and the money made on the backs of incarcerated people. And, like their anti-apartheid predecessors, current activists expose the vast financial rewards reaped by companies that deprive individuals of freedom, wrest loved ones from families, and destroy communities while also draining state governments of tax-paying citizens. The anti-prison campaigners intend to stir consciences and undermine a brutal regime, this time hidden in our own backyard. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/15/columbia-university-divesting-from-private-prison-companies-why-other-schools-should-too/

Recent studies show that black men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than whites and 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic men. If current trends continue, one in every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one in every six Latino males—compared to one in every 17 white men.

The challenge facing today’s divestment supporters is much like that of their anti-apartheid predecessors. When that movement began in the 1970’s, few Americans understood the repressive tactics of South Africa’s regime. As students and other activists disclosed the suffering and injustices underlying apartheid, they provoked the consciences of the nation.

The South African divestment campaign was hard-fought. Beginning in the late 1970’s, student activists faced an uphill struggle persuading university trustees that their responsibilities extended to matters of social conscience and justice. Columbia’s divestment movement made significant headway in 1978, when trustees agreed to “withdraw deposits in financial institutions doing business with the South African government.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/15/columbia-university-divesting-from-private-prison-companies-why-other-schools-should-too/

Why Prisoners and Ex-Felons Should Retain the Right to Vote, by Gregg D. Caruso - Guest Blogger

On Tuesday, November 8, when Americans go to the polls to cast their ballot for the next President of the United States, an estimated 6.1 million citizens will be barred from participating due to felony convictions. 

African American communities have disproportionately been impacted by these felony disenfranchisement policies—a recent report from The Sentencing Project estimates that one in every thirteen black Americans has lost their voting rights.

I propose that prisoners and ex-felons should retain the right to vote and that to disempower and disenfranchise such a large portion of the population is philosophically unjustified and harmful to society. The notion of civic death is grounded in an antiquated retributivist justification for punishment and is misguided and counterproductive. It should be abolished along with its other components.

First, I propose that only restrictions to personal liberty that have a demonstrated and substantial link to protecting public safety should be permitted. The right of self-protection and protection of harm to others, for example, can justify incapacitating dangerous criminals but it cannot justify restricting or removing voting rights. Preventing prisoners and ex-felons from voting does not fall within the public safety exception of liberty. 

Second, disempowering and disenfranchising prisoners and ex-felons has the effect of dehumanizing and marginalizing them, sometimes permanently. Philosophically arbitrary and perpetual punishment, including the denial of voting rights to people who have paid their debt, imposes second-class citizenship on millions of citizens. This disempowerment runs contrary to the notion of second-chances—the idea that an individual can redeem himself and correct his/her course in life. If one thinks that prisons should aim at rehabilitation, then retaining the right to vote is essential. As The Guardian put it back in 2012, “A prisoner’s rehabilitation as a safe, responsible, and productive member of society must include the most basic right of democratic process—the right to choose who governs us. To remove this right dehumanizes prisoners.”

Third, as a recent article in Politico Magazine argues:

[O]ur constitutional ideals support the right of prisoners to vote, and denying it violates the concept of self-government that the founders cherished. Granting this right also makes sense for the country in terms of politics and policy. As prisons have grappled with the explosion in their populations in the past 20 years, allegations of prisoner maltreatment multiply, and criminal justice reform moves to the fore of our political debate, we should consider that one of the best ways to solve these intractable and expensive problems would be to listen to those currently incarcerated—and to allow them to represent themselves in our national political conversation.

By cutting felons out of the political conversation, we are losing out on the potential insights they could provide. Public policy would greatly benefit by listening to those most affected by the social determinates of crime and those most familiar with the workings of the criminal justice system. Disempowering prisoners and ex-felons results in a class of citizens still subject to the laws of the United States but without a voice in the way they are governed—not unlike taxation without representation. 

Finally, as the Politico article also notes, felony disenfranchisement laws create a cast system eerily similar of the days of slavery and Jim Crow:

The vast majority of states prisoners cannot vote, yet they’re often counted in the population for the legislative district of their prison, the main factor that determines a state’s number of representatives and its presidential electoral votes. It’s a practice the NAACP calls “prison-based gerrymandering.” If that sounds familiar, it should: Such a policy resembles the Constitution’s notorious three-fifths clause, which denied slaves the right to vote but counted them in the Census for the purposes of amassing more pro-slavery representatives.

This is an extremely troubling practice with sad political implications. Just like the days of the three-fifths clause, modern day prison-based gerrymandering means politicians lack an incentive to reduce the number of prisons in their district since they benefit politically from them—and they benefit without having to listen to the needs and concerns of those imprisoned. 

https://progressiveprisonproject.blogspot.com/2016/11/why-prisoners-and-ex-felons-should-retain-the-right-to-vote-by-gregg-d-caruso-guest-blogger.html