The Prison Vote

The corrupt governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, announced the other day that ex-cons will be granted the vote just in time of the presidential election. His assumption is that identity politics being what it is, the ex-con vote will naturally flock to Hillary Clinton, supporting someone they see as their own. There has always been an assumption that convicts, if given the chance, will vote for people like themselves.

That is the assumption. The reality is something different. Ex-cons tend not to vote at all. Those who would be inclined to vote are those who have gone the other way with their lives, embracing religion or social advocacy to help ex-cons get on the right path. It is a small club that will not make a difference in an election. Their party choice will most likely be along racial lines. The honkies voting for the Christian Republicans and the blacks voting for Liberal Democrats.

What is really going on here is an attempt to energize the black vote, particularly the female black vote. There is an assumption among white plutocrats that because so many black men are in prison, black women are naturally soft on crime. Liberals have done the math and realized that Obama won states like Virginia the first time on the overwhelming turnout among black women. Without black women voting in large numbers, he may have lost in 2012.

The image of the wailing black woman, as her son is led away to prison, is what they have in mind. They think by being soft on crime, they can appeal to that voter. Of course, that same black woman will be the first one yelling that the police do not do their job, so it is more complicated than the rich honkies understand. That and the last time I checked; Hillary is not a charming black man. That is what these black women saw in 2008, not a cackling hag promising treats.

There is also an HBD assumption in the weeds here. Lefty will call you a racist for noticing that blacks commit an enormous amount of crime, but they base their political calculations on it. They make assumptions about blacks that would make the Aryan Brotherhood blush. Even the AB understands that not all black people think alike. That has always been the thing with Lefty. He talks like MLK but lives like the KKK.

Whether or not ex-cons should be allowed to vote is a tricky subject. On the one hand, we have the idea of paying your debt to society. You break the law and you pay the price for it. Once the price is paid, your rights are restored. Including the right to vote makes a lot of sense. The argument here is that we want to encourage ex-cons to become good citizens and the promise of a second chance is an incentive. Either you paid your debt or you still owe, there’s no in between.

Of course, the right to own a gun should also be restored, but you can be sure no one will ever ask Liberal Democrats about that issue. That is the reason the Wuss Right is in trouble. They simply refuse to go on offense. They should be attacking the Left on this very issue. Make it about the Left’s gun grabbing. That is how you win at politics. Always be on offense and force the other guy to defend his positions. But they are called the Wuss Right for a reason.

Libertarians would go even further and say we should not maintain public crime records. Once a person has fulfilled their obligations to the criminal justice system, they should not have to carry the burden of a criminal record. The argument here is a youthful indiscretion can haunt someone for the rest of their days and that is not in the public interest. Sealing the criminal records after the punishment has been served lets the offender rejoin society with a clean slate.

Keeping this stuff a secret, however, is now impossible. Put a name into Google and you can quickly find their criminal history. The Social Justice Warriors and the people who fight them use this basic tool all the time to unearth damaging information. Stop exposing criminal records to the public and a private firm will step in and do it. Imagine Apple running a criminal database. Tim Cook would expunge the records of the sodomites, but enhance the records of Christians.

Putting that aside, I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument in favor of restoring all rights to ex-cons. I have met more than a few men who lost their franchise due to being knuckleheads in their youth. They got into the drug game and eventually got busted. They went onto live normal productive lives, but were barred from voting and had to explain their criminal record to every potential employer. How that serves the public interest is hard to explain.

On the other hand, giving murderers and child molesters a clean slate is against the best interests of society. Sex crimes arise from deep psychological defects that can never be fixed. Murder is a crime against the very nature of human society that can never be truly forgiven. Housing these people in cages may not be practical, but ostracizing them via the scarlet letter is something the public will always demand. This is where my penal colony idea looks fairly good. Sex offender island would solve this problem.

23 thoughts on “The Prison Vote

  1. What is amazing is a corrupt politician issues a edict without discussion with the public nor allowing the legislature to vote on the matter. This is what is killing the country. Officials abusing their authority be trampling the laws and Cnstitution of Virginia in the name of “social justice.” The values and traditions established by generations of Americans should not be shredded by such scum without retribution lest America wind up as snieveling chattel like the Europeans.

  2. Every single American is a felon, probably committing several felonies weekly. Some are real criminals who don’t get caught or don’t get prosecuted (Hi there Hillary, hi there vast horde of DAs to gutless or corrupt to indict her) but most are ordinary citizens afoul of one of eleventeen billion idiot laws.

    So treating actually convicted felons differently after punishment than the uncaught average Joe felon makes little sense to me.

  3. Think what you could do with 20,000 extra free ballots if you are the strap-on psychopath in a pantsuit. Can’t think of a more cultural marxist method of vote rigging than the free use of 20,000 guys who reside in a crowbar hotel with no address or drivers licenses. The possibilities are limitless. It is gerrymandering on crack.

  4. The truth is that most people should not have the franchise. I’ll trade the convict vote for all who receive government assistance, all who are employed by government–fed, state, local, public schoolteachers, etc. In other words, single women. But offending males must of course be included with the flock.

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  6. Today’s voter rolls are well populated with dead people, illegal aliens, clones, and, yes, people who have served time for felonies, so one need not attach over much significance to this latest cynical spasm of the idiot McAuliffe.

  7. McAuliffe’s purpose in restoring felons’ right to vote is primarily that they’ll be on the voter rolls, and democrat operatives will find a way to cast a votes for Hillary in their names.

  8. The problem, of course, is in your last paragraph. In theory, few have strong objections to minor offenders being allowed to vote after serving their time; however, rapist, murderers and, especially, pedophiles will draw that objection. The people on the Left, such as McAuliffe, will never draw that line since, as you note,they assume all ex-cons will vote D. This is not a legitimate attempt to restore anyone’s civil rights. It is a naked political grasp at yet more power. If that means courting the support of child rapers, then so be it. Any port in a storm, so to speak.

  9. I would say the real issue here is that voter fraud just got easier for the left. All of a sudden here come a bunch of new voters to be added to the rolls.

  10. The whole point of serving a sentence for a crime is that once the sentence is served the offender is no longer an offender. The debt is paid and all normal rights are returned. Sure, I get that handing guns to former criminals who used guns before is a crazy idea — and for that matter allowing insane muslim terrorists to remain in the society they tried so hard to destroy is equally insane — but generally a person once out of clink has a chance to get on with life.

    However, our caring society still judges people after the jail rem is over. In the UK we had a footballer who was accused of rape, found guilty and went to jail. He had talent, and was young enough on release to resume his career in the sport. However he couldn’t find employment as angry supporters of any club showing an interest (and heaven knows some of those clubs needed all the help they could get) were threatened with boycotts by their own supporters, so this man was far from reckoned to have paid his debt.

    As justice would have it his case is being reopened with the original verdict quashed so he can face retrial which may prove his innocence. We shall see. I expect if he gets absolved of the crime he will be inundated with offers of employment, even though he has lost far more years from his career than his original sentence intended. I also expect all those nasty ‘supporters’ who screamed at their club for trying to sign the player will be feeling a little bit stupid if he turns out to be wholly innocent.

    • UKer-I’d like you to say that to the widow who has seen her life savings stolen by a conman or to the woman who has been raped. I’m sure they have been restored. Now explain to me why allowing someone who has paid “their debt to society” should be prohibited from owning a gun, according to the little sermon you preached. Little wonder that London now has far more crime than New York ever had and why the law abidding citizen in the UK lives like a frightened rabbit while hodlums run riot through the Uk.

  11. Actually, you need to purge the sex offenders rolls of those that don’t reoffend.

    We know a guy that was busted for a sex offense when he was 18. We’ve seen the info from the trial and talked to the prosecutor. He and a friend were at the park, drinking and smoking pot. Some young girls, aged 15 and 16, came up to hang out with them. He touched one one the breast while they were both fully clothed. He was arrested and convicted. He is in his late 40s, has never had any other sex offenses, yet still has to register as a sex offender. Because he routinely forgets this, he keeps getting thrown in jail. The prosecuter told us that she had no idea at the time that he would have to deal with this his whole life. He if had the money, she could get it expunged from his record. He will be dealing with this the rest of his life.

  12. A quick Google search – “According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in US federal and state prisons, and county jails in 2013 – about 0.91% of adults (1 in 110) in the U.S. resident population”.

    I don’t see how that few numbers could have any significant impact on the outcome of a US election. Do you have any voter statistics for prison participation in past elections? Are there different rules for state vs. federal prisoners with regards to being able to vote? Can an American citizen actually be denied the right to vote?

    • In America, no states allow prisoners to vote. At least as far as I know. The issue here are ex-convicts who have served their time. Most states block ex-cons from voting. In a few states they can get their voting rights back after a period of time, assuming no additional trouble.

      • While I can understand how someone would not be allowed to own a firearm after being convicted of a crime that involved the use of a firearm, being denied the right to vote doesn’t make any sense at all, regardless of the crime. Prisoners and ex-convicts are still citizens and protected under your Constitution and therefore should not be denied equal protection given to other citizens.

        • The mentally ill are still citizens and protected under the Constitution. Should they be allowed to vote?

          • The mentally ill are the ones running for office – so what’s the difference! 😉 But seriously, all citizens should be allowed to vote regardless of their mental or criminal state. I don’t like the idea of anyone having the power to determine who can or can not vote – it is the most basic right of a democratic society. The very nature of citizenship grants all rights and protection to all citizens of that nation. Defining who is or is not entitled to specific rights is a very slippery slope.

          • of course the easy answer is to require real property ownership or the payment of income tax.

          • Clearly Germany allows the mentally challenged to vote. Must be nice to live in a society where there are no requirements to be able to vote. In Democratic Germany do you allow aliens who reside in Germany to vote? Do you allow felons who have committed murder to vote? How about members of the Bader Menhoff gang? Shouldn’t they be permitted to vote? How about those who have never worked and rely on the handouts of the State. Shouldn’t they be allowed to vote just like the working man who pays taxes?

        • So you would allow someone who committed treason, murder, arson, etc. the right to vote Karl? On the contrary prisoners and convicts are not considered citizens if they are felons and the Constitution neither extends its priviledges and protections to those who would destroy it nor to those who seek to destroy civilized society. Thats why the Constitution established courts and set up punishments. But then again as an American I would not seek to pretend mastery of German law and society while so many Europeans lecture Americans on the US Constitution.

      • Know what you call 20,000 felons voting for the psychopath in a pantsuit?
        Professional courtesy.

        Besides, McAullife has a pen and a phone too. I guess they couldn’t ship in enough illegal immigrants on those empty FedEx and UPS cargo return flights in time for the primaries.

    • In any national election int he US, the black vote has become the margin of victory for the Left. In 2000, the candidates basically split evenly, statistically it was 50/50. However, absent the black vote, it would have been Bush 55%, Gore 45%. The calculation behind the current move is that bolstering that margin, even by a small bit, gives the Left a better chance of winning on a national level. This, in turn, is based on the assumption that (1) most felons are black, and (2) blacks will vote D 90+% of the time. Given that chance, the Left would violate any law, tradition, or constitutional provision.

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