GA Resolution: Voting Equality for Freed Inmates

[thepeninsular]

Voting Equality for Freed Inmates

A resolution to increase democratic freedoms.

Category: Furtherment of Democracy

Strength: Mild

Proposed by: United Massachusetts

The General Assembly:

Noting that freed inmates have already paid the legal consequence for their action, and therefore ought to be, rather than shunned out of society, reintegrated into it,

Believing that the right to vote ought not to be arbitrarily deprived from individuals due to such factors as prior criminal status that do not impede one's mental competency,

Concerned especially for the innocently convicted, who, through felon disenfrachisement laws, are unfairly deprived of voting rights for a crime they did not commit,

Asserting, therefore, that the disenfranchisement of former criminals constitutes unjust discrimination that must, in the name of civil equality, be addressed by this Assembly:

Prohibits member nations from denying a non-imprisoned, otherwise-eligible individual the right to vote on an equal basis with any other voter solely on account of their prior criminal activity, unless any of the following is true:


a) said criminal activity directly pertained to any of the following crimes:

i) voter fraud or other related acts,

ii) improperly aiding a foreign or domestic power in the subversion of the nation,

b) said person is on either parole or probation for a previous crime,


Prohibits member nations from enacting measures that would excessively impede the right of an otherwise-eligible former criminal from voting,

Reserves for member nations the liberty to legislate on the issue of enfranchisement for individuals under incarceration.

Voting thread: 10000islands.proboards.com/thread/34950/resolution-voting-equality-freed-inmates

[Paffnia]

Very much FOR this—disenfranchisement based on criminal history is all sorts of bad and racist (in the U.S., at the very least).