Votes for Prisoners

November 3rd, 2010 § 2 comments

I was thinking about this earlier. Prisoners getting the vote.

Prisoners are to get the right to vote as the government is poised to throw in the towel in a long-running legal tussle with the European court of human rights, it emerged today.

It is understood that the coalition is to confirm that it is ready to change the law to remove the voting ban on more than 70,000 inmates of British jails.

You know what I say?

Fuck ’em.

If someone doesn’t play by the rules why should they get to say what the rules are?

If it’s all about human rights, how about bringing to an end overcrowding? That’ll do more for the prisoners than the chuffing vote.

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§ 2 Responses to Votes for Prisoners"

  • Jim says:

    Prison is a loss of liberty, not a loss of citizenship. And in many cases whether someone is sent to prison can be a bit arbitrary, and can even depend on whether there are any cells left; do you really want to impose a blanket ban in those circumstances? It also gives government the power to control who votes by setting prison sentences for certain crimes etc.

    At the very least, the government has to end its blanket ban. But it might be able to keep the ban for certain classes of criminal, whether by offence or length of sentence etc. (Although a different ECJ ruling against Austria ruled that a ban could only be upheld if the offence related to activity around elections.)

    (I also support the idea of having prisoners vote by proxy/postal in their home constituency, rather than have an influx of new voters in areas with prisons.)

    • Sim-O says:

      When someone is banged up they are removed from society. They have certain rights and privileges stripped from them.

      …whether someone is sent to prison can be a bit arbitrary, and can even depend on whether there are any cells left; do you really want to impose a blanket ban in those circumstances?

      It’s arbitrary at the moment. I have no problem with it. If your vote is that precious to you, don’t put yourself in a position where you might lose it.

      It also gives government the power to control who votes by setting prison sentences for certain crimes etc.

      Is that really an effective/plausible way of controlling votes? Really?

      The best response to this I’ve come across was from Tygerland, Those prisoners that are going to be released during the next government get to vote. So if you’re imprisoned, you get one vote.

      Where that vote is counted, I don’t know. That’s for another discussion.

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