The universal right to vote is a significant step that distinguishes a dictatorship from a thriving democracy, and it is what gives the people a form of control over their government. However, this fundamental right excludes one primary group of people: convicted felons.

Our prison and justice systems are designed to strip those convicted of their humanity. From the moment of their sentencing, the lives of those convicted of crimes can be ruined. Inside prison they live in horrible conditions where the food quality is poor, they face violence from guards, and the absence of air conditioning results in extreme heat. Even after they serve their time, the odds are stacked against them when trying to get work, applying for loans, or renting an apartment. In short, rather than rehabilitating those convicted, our prison system ruins their lives. 

Prisoners have no way of voting while incarcerated. Sometimes, even after serving their time, they never get this right back. The U.S. government makes it almost impossible for jailed or detained people to exercise their right to vote by placing many barriers in the process of attempting to vote, such as preventing those jailed from having access to voting booths, even though jailed people still have the right to vote while detained. On the other hand, people in prison have absolutely no way of voting while incarcerated and have no legal protection to allow them to vote except in Vermont and Maine. The difference between being jailed and in prison is jail is where you are kept while awaiting trial and prison is where you are sent after you have been convicted. Even after prison, voting is difficult. Prisoners’ right to vote is dependent on the state they live in, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. For example, in Michigan, the right to vote returns the moment you leave prison, but in Virginia, an ex-felon would have to submit a petition to the government to earn their voting right back, and these petitions could be pending indefinitely.  

Prisons’ main purpose according to the DOJ is “to protect society by confining offenders in the controlled environments of prisons and provide work and other self-improvement opportunities to assist offenders in becoming law-abiding citizens.” If prisons’ purpose is to reintroduce people into society, why are ex-felons not allowed the rights of their citizenship immediately in all states and territories? Voting is citizens’ main power in our government and it is the only way we have a say in what happens to our homes, schools, cities, states, countries, and bodies. How can we expect someone to live in our society if they feel completely excluded and isolated from the way it works? It is ludicrous to say that the label of “ex-felon” should determine whether or not you should count or have a vote in our society. 

This issue surpasses the basic fact of striping citizens of their rights, it also plays into long-term race issues in our country. To fully understand these complexities it is imperative to understand our nation’s past with systematic disenfranchisement. After black men got the right to vote with the 15th amendment, voting in the South changed to exclude black men from voting in a way still considered legal. Literacy tests were used to determine who could enter the voting polls. These tests had no right answers and were purposely confusing. These tests were only given to black men approaching the polls where they would “fail” and be turned away. When these tests were no longer allowed the South shifted to another form of suppressing these votes. Black men started being sent to prison for very minor infractions, whether that be loitering or petty crimes.

In the 1860s, about 18 states had felony disenfranchisement policies, but the number jumped to 28 after the Civil War. The increase in felon disenfranchisement policies along with the establishment of Black Codes, which further restricted the civil liberties of Black people, were clearly racially motivated policies. While these disenfranchisement laws were put in place over 150 years ago, they continue to disproportionately affect Black Americans. According to the official United States Federal Bureau of Prisons website, 38.7% of those incarcerated are Black. The United States census states that the U.S. Black population is 13.6%. This indicates that over a quarter of those in prison are Black while the Black population in the U.S. doesn’t even make up a sixth of the population. This is systematic disenfranchisement. The system is taking away marginalized groups’ rights to vote and there is nothing more to it than that. If the population in prisons overrepresents marginalized groups due to both over-policing and disproportionate incarceration rates, then those populations will subsequently lose their right to vote at high rates and their voices will be silenced.

Voting is essential to the democratic processes of our country and it should be a universal right for all U.S. citizens. To call our country the “Land of the Free” without immediately granting the freedom to vote to someone who had spent years of their life in prison to finally be reintroduced into society is a lie and is not justice. Justice is the years they spent in prison, not the years after.