The Murderer Vote

Aamer Madhani reports in USA Today:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he thinks every U.S. citizen, even the convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, should be allowed to vote in American elections.

Sanders offered his stance at a CNN town hall Monday when asked whether he thought felons should be allowed to vote while they're incarcerated, not just after their release.

But that's just Crazy Bernie, right? Right?

"Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, 'Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,' you're running down a slippery slope," Sanders said in response to a question about restoring felons' voting rights.

But the slope isn't slippery in the direction Sanders claims. There is no movement to expanding felon disenfranchisement.  To the extent there is movement, it has been in the other direction. But surely the other candidates aren't going to follow Sanders off the cliff on this, are they?

California Sen. Kamala Harris and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who appeared separately at St. Anslem on Monday night, were also posed questions about whether or not to allow convicted felons the right to vote while they are serving their sentences.

Harris, a former prosecutor and state attorney general, was considerably more circumspect.

"I think we should have that conversation," Harris said, adding that voting rights should not be "stripped" needlessly.

I wouldn't say "circumspect." I would say "weaseling." Surely she has thought about it enough to have an opinion on it. Why not tell us what it is? It's not a hard question. Forty-eight states bar felons from voting while in prison.

Buttigieg didn't hesitate when asked whether felons should be allowed to vote white serving their sentences.

"No," he said. "I do believe that when you are, when you have served your sentence, then part of being restored to society is that you are part of the political life of this nation again and one of the things that needs to be restored is your right to vote."

Okay, given the audience, I can see throwing it that extra bit. But at least he gave a straightforward, and correct IMHO, answer to the main question.

The Murderer Vote curated from Crime and Consequences Blog