Extend voting to convicted Illinois inmates

Every Illinoisan should support Illinois SB 828 which will extend voting rights to 30,000 convicted Illinois inmates if enacted next legislative term. Championed by Illinois reps La Shawn Ford, Kelly Cassidy and voting rights advocates, the measure would extend inmate voting to include the convicted besides just pretrial detainees.

Rep. Cassidy summed up the issue stating “There is a growing understanding of the inherent unfairness and the disproportionate impact on communities of color. As long as we are going out of our way to put more black and brown people in prison, that’s going to impact the voting rights of those communities.”

Even without extending the vote to convicted felons, Illinois is ahead of several dozen states which deny voting to detainees, even released felons. That disenfranchises over 6 million ex-cons in the most incarceration crazy nation on earth.

Opponents argue the incarcerated have forfeited their right to vote as just punishment for their anti-social behavior. Yet, if the goal of justice is to both protect the public and rehabilitate the incarcerated for eventual return to society, convict voting serves both purposes. It has no adverse effect on public safety and may have a positive effect on rehabilitation by encouraging felons to re-engage with the society from which they've been excluded.

Illinois should join just 2 states, Maine and Vermont, which allow convicted inmates to vote.

How is convict voting working in Maine and Vermont? FBI violent crime stats place Vermont 49th and Maine dead last in violent crime per hundred thousand residents. Alaska and New Mexico top the fifty in violent crime per hundred thousand. The reasons must be many but convict voting certainly doesn't hurt.

A famous US political phrase 'As Maine goes so goes the nation' was popular at one time, reflecting Maine's reputation as a bell-weather state for predicting presidential elections. When it comes to convict voting, as well as the 6 million on parole, probation and simply former felons, we should update that to 'As Maine and Vermont go on convict voting...so should the nation'.

This fall, Illinois can become the third.