In Virginia, on April 22, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order providing that felons who have completed their sentences and are no longer under supervised probation or parole will automatically be eligible to vote (no longer having to apply for approval to do so). It's estimated that this stroke of the pen restores voting rights to about 200,000. The Governor characterizes this as restoring the rights of full citizenship. Big-"D" Democrats in the state have applauded this move. It seems to me that any small-"d" democrat should be happy with this move. And aren't most of our politicians, of whatever party stripe, professed democrats?
Not so fast! The Commonwealth's Republicans are crying foul, suggesting it's all a cynical political move to enhance Democrats' election prospects this coming November. For you see, it happens that a large proportion of those 200,000 people are African-American!* Well, such is the game of politics. The GOP may choose to conjure up the new crime of "felony voting," but I for one think it's self-evident that if a criminal has paid his/her debt to society, it's only fair that he/she should again be able to vote.
By the same token, Morning Fog has more than once taken issue with the Democratic Party position that asking voters to produce a identification is a cynical political move. Here again, the idea is fair and reasonable (why shouldn't a voter have to identify himself?) and whatever the political fallout may be, it's irrelevant. Hmm.... that rather reminds me of the voters of the District of Columbia, who have no voting representation in Congress...there's something else that needs fixing, regardless of the politics of the situation.
*A fact tangential to this discussion but which I found shocking: One in four African-American voters in Virginia, according to the Washington Post, has been banned from voting because of felony convictions. 1 in 4?
One in 4!? Wow. That's high. Never would have guessed that.
As for letting convicted felons vote, I'm not crazy about the idea but yes, they've paid their debt. They should be able to vote again. I've always been for voter ID, however. It seems only logical to have to identify oneself in order to vote. I don't consider that requirement to be "voter suppression." And DC voting? Of course they should get to vote. They are citizens. They shouldn't lose their right to vote just because they choose to move to DC and enter public service. Or happened to be born there. They are subject to US law and taxes. Let 'em vote!
Posted by: PiedType | April 25, 2016 at 09:56 AM