Following up on this link to the new ACLU report on felon disenfranchisement, Brett Bellmore sends along the following comments via e-mail:

I’ll be up front about this: I actually favor restoring ALL the civil rights of felons, on their exit from prison. (More on this later.)
However, a pretty strong argument to the contrary can be made, and I find the ACLU’s position on the *partial* restoration of civil liberties sufficiently inconsistant, that I doubt their good faith.
First, that argument: Unlike many civil rights, such as freedom of speech, the right to vote is NOT among the inalienable rights government is instituted to protect. It is a matter of civil participation, rather, similar to jury duty. People don’t vote because voting is valuable in and of itself, like freedom of speech. They do so to participate in the selection of our government.
Felons, by their depraved actions, forfiet the presumption that they share the comunity’s moral values, and that their participation in influencing government policy would actually be a *positive* contribution. Rather, by their conviction the contrary presumption is created, that they hold depraved values, and to the extent their votes steer public policy, they steer it towards *evil*, not good.
That presumption might reasonably be overturned in particular cases, by some specific showing of redemption. But it is not an unreasonable presumption to hold, and to base policy on. Or at least not so unreasonable as to rise to a constitutional level.
Now, that said, there are of course several problems with this argument. The first and most glaring is that “felony inflation”, and the vast expansion of malum prohibitum law, render the assumption that convicted felons are in any way depraved dubious at best. Though the legal fiction is that an act somehow becomes depraved if a law is passed against it….
The second is that denying released felons the vote requires a mechanism for that denial, which is awkward, expensive, and error prone. To the extent that convicted felons who’ve been released ARE actually depraved, the cost of including their votes doesn’t justify the trouble of excluding them.
Now, as to the ACLU, I find their admiration for foreign concepts of appropriate civil liberties somewhat strange. It seems to only apply to those liberties and nations which actually agree with preconcieved ACLU policy. For instance, how about abortion? Regulation of offensive speech? Or even, (Strossen assures us civil liberties aren’t “coextensive” with the Constitution.) the right to trial by jury? Funny how the ACLU doesn’t find us being out of step on THOSE subjects troublesome.
Further, voting is of course scarcely the only right denied to convicted felons. How about that right the ACLU fears to defend, gun ownership? It’s beyond me why a non-violent felon should be denied the means to defend himself, given the extent to which prohibitions on gun ownership by convicted felons are far harder to enforce, and the degree to which attempts at enforcement have compromised the liberties of the law abiding majority.
Frankly, while I don’t find the argument I related above fully persuasive, it does reduce my concern about felon disenfranchisement to the point where I won’t support it *by itself*. Whole hog or nothing: Until the ACLU comes out for returning to convicted felons ALL their rights, I’ll find the obvious accusation persuasive: They don’t support reenfranchisement out of civil liberties concerns. They support it because they’re Democrats, and felons are known to vote heavily Democratic.
Prove me wrong, ACLU: Take the *principled* stand for once.
Brett Bellmore