Mining for Votes: A Bold Faced Scheme

On NPR this morning the topic was voting rights for felons. The guest was a member of the Wisconsin Assembly who sponsored a bill to restore voting rights to convicted felons who are on parole. His rationale was that the removal of the right to vote is a deterrent to committing the crime, not a consequence that was intended to limit the rehabilitated felon’s ability to participate in society.

Current law requires felons to complete parole and then file some paperwork with the state, after which their right to vote is restored. The co-sponsor on the bill is a assembly woman from Milwaukee who is deeply concerned about the disenfranchisement of blacks, specifically those who fail to complete parole and as a result continue to lack the right to vote. The guest pointed out that Wisconsin has the highest percentage in the nation of blacks who had lost the right to vote, per capita, at 1 in 9, compared to whites at 1 in 50.

During the time I was listening the show took 2 callers. The first was the husband of a felon who had completed parole and had her rights reinstated. He was on the side of the guest, saying the state had every reasonable expectation his wife would complete the parole and paperwork requirements, but it was a hassle and very stressful, and she felt it was unfair that given her effort she could not be included in our government process which affected her the same as everyone else.

The second caller pointed out that the law was written for a reason and the loss of voting rights is absolutely an intended consequence. Those who don’t follow society’s rules should not have the same opportunities as those that do, and how is it unreasonable to require someone to complete parole before being able to fully participate in society again? Is it really such a stretch to expect that someone actually obey the law once they get out of prison? All this bill does is accommodate people who either have no intention of following the law or are just too troubled to stay on the straight and narrow. Do we really want either of these types of people influencing elections?

Not surprisingly, the sponsors of this bill are Democrats. This is all about vote mining, and has nothing to do with citizen’s rights. If felons were predominantly Republican, there would be no such bill in the works, but the opposite is true. Felons vote Democrat by a large margin, and in elections where a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can swing the result, this is huge.

Claims that the current law is racist are disingenuous, as it affects all felons, not just non-whites, and the fact that blacks commit more felonies than whites, or at least get caught doing it more than whites, is not a result of the law, either directly or indirectly, but of the choices each person makes. Any statement to the contrary is pure race politics and is the lowest and most blatant form of political coercion.

The guest claimed to have data clearly indicating felons who voted while on parole integrated into society at a higher rate than those that didn’t. He’s either lying or claiming to have documented illegal voting, since the law clearly prohibits this. If I was a career Republican I’d be demanding his data lists as evidence that ineligible felons are indeed voting in Wisconsin. We all know this is happening; now one of the dems has just validated it!

Finally, this is a gateway bill. The ultimate goal of the Dems is to get all convicted criminals the right to vote, even those still incarcerated, regardless of the crime. They are after all, victims of the system. Who are we, the people, to hold anyone accountable for his or her actions! Shame.