Simply put, the United States stands alone among first world democracies for denying the vote to so many felons and ex-felons for such long periods of time. In a country that ranks 138th in the world in terms of voter turnout, should we really be silencing so many of our electorate?
The United States is now swimming against the tide of international opinion on this issue. In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of giving English prisoners the right to vote, saying the disfranchisement of 48,000 prisoners in British jails violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court said that with the exception of the right to liberty, lawfully detained prisoners continued to enjoy all the rights guaranteed in the Convention, including political rights.
Although the United States is a country that professes pride in its democratic ideals, it seems as if other countries around the world have a greater belief in the ability of a democracy to embrace all people, no matter what their views. In South Africa, soon after the dismantling of apartheid, the Constitutional Court declared the disfranchisement of prisoners even serving unconstitutional.
Prisoners vote in a large number of countries, and some countries have more tailored bans on prisoner voting. For example, disfranchisement is rare in Norway, where courts are only allowed to disfranchise those convicted of treason, electoral fraud and national security breaches, and Poland permits courts to disfranchise those convicted of extremely serious offenses and sentenced to over three years in prison.
Some lawyers argue that American disfranchisement policies are likely to be in contravention of international human rights instruments that guarantee the right to vote, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been ratified by the United States. The racially disproportionate impact of the law may also contravene the non-discrimination policies in the Covenant and in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the US has also ratified.
In the first time US policies have been challenged in an international forum, the ACLU and Rutgers University filed a petition in September, 2006 with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The petition alleges that New Jersey’s disfranchisement policy, prohibiting voting by paroles and probationers, violates a treaty called the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. The US signed and is bound by the provisions of this Declaration, and the Commission has jurisdiction to address states’ violations of the Declaration.
The ACLU’s international advocacy, through meetings, presentations, and submission of a “shadow report,” helped result in strong recommendations for post-prison enfranchisement from the UN Human Rights Committee, the body that monitors states’ compliance with the international Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.In a country that has such low voter turnout, the impact of disfranchising large numbers of people is even more serious and highlights the need for action on the issue.
For more information on the international situation, visit:http://www.fairelection.us/documents/Prepart42.pdf