From the law review article linked above:
The state constitution provides that “[n]o person may vote who has been convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude unless his civil rights have been restored.” The provision was adopted at Alaska’s constitutional convention in 1956 and became law upon Alaska’s admission to the union in 1959…. The contours of the constitutional provision are set by statute. The term “felony involving moral turpitude” is defined to include nearly all felonies. Voting registration is automatically cancelled upon conviction. Voting rights are restored, and felons may re-register to vote upon completion of their sentences including any terms of parole or probation.
The list of felonies that involve “moral turpitude” is quite long, and includes false-statement crimes like perjury, including “perjury by inconsistent statements,” “falsifying business records,” and other false-statement-ish crimes.
ALASKA STAT. s. 15.60.010(8) (2006). At present, crimes meriting disenfranchisement (“felon[ies] involving moral turpitude”) include:
those crimes that are immoral or wrong in themselves such as murder, manslaughter, assault, sexual assault, sexual abuse of a minor, unlawful exploitation of a minor, robbery, extortion, coercion, kidnapping, incest, arson, burglary, theft, forgery, criminal possession of a forgery device, offering a false instrument for recording, scheme to defraud, falsifying business records, commercial bribe receiving, commercial bribery, bribery, receiving a bribe, perjury, perjury by inconsistent statements, endangering the welfare of a minor, escape, promoting contraband, interference with official proceedings, receiving a bribe by a witness or a juror, jury tampering, misconduct by a juror, tampering with physical evidence, hindering prosecution, terroristic threatening, riot, criminal possession of explosives, unlawful furnishing of explosives, promoting prostitution, criminal mischief, misconduct involving a controlled substance or an imitation controlled substance, permitting an escape, promoting gambling, possession of gambling records, distribution of child pornography, and possession of child pornography . . . .
Not looking good for the good Senator.
to appoint a replacement. Heh.
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p>Speaking of the governor, I’m sure she’s glad she made the solid point a few months ago that she and Ted are “like this”. It always helps the campaign to be tight with a convicted felon.
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I thought Lisa Murkowski was appointed Senator after her own father, Frank Murkowski, gifted it to her. Was the change in law a reaction to his reckless nepotism?
although I don’t know the whys and wherefores.
Info that is not only fun, but factual, too! Yay!
He deserved to be convicted, and he deserves to lose his vote.
Here
They put up an endorsement of Begich and Berkowitz right after the conviction was announced, and then later changed it. Apparently their readership, uh, made some reasoned arguments in the polite discourse that followed.
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p> – Dan
Some of the Editors could not endorse a pro-choice candidate in good conscience.
I do believe that he deserved to be convicted, but I don’t believe any American deserves to lose his vote.
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p>Citizen? check.
Over 18? check.
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p>In my mind, only Maine and Vermont have it right. The right to vote comes with age and citizenship — period. I believe that Ted Stevens should still have his right to vote. He’s a criminal, but still an American.
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p>P.S. I’m willing to entertain losing the right to vote if you’re convicted of election-related felonies. Keeping you away from the polls may be a small price to pay for helping to ensure that they’re fraud-free.
why are you more willing to extend the franchise to felons, who by definition have violated some of society’s most basic norms, while denying it to, say, permanent residents who live here legally, who play by the rules, and who seem to be far better “citizens” than the aforementioned felons?
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p>Me, I have no problem denying the vote to incarcerated felons. Actions have consequences. I also think civil rights should automatically be restored upon release and successful completion of parole. In other words, I think Alaska actually has it about right.
“Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.”
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p>Democracy is an interlocking system of feedback loops, and the franchise is the most important conduit of those feedback loops in our system of Democracy. Expand the franchise and you strengthen the whole system.
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p>Until fairly recently, Massachusetts was one of three states that allowed people to vote while in prison. Why did it get changed? Because some prisoners were organizing for better prison conditions. I’m repulsed and disgusted by our electorate for having responded by passing a ballot measure to disenfranchise prisoners.
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p>However, regardless of what one thinks of an individual prisoner’s right to vote being taken away, the fact that we’ve removed these people from the Democratic system hurts us by giving us less effective, less accountable government, and by disconnecting a set of people from our political process further than they were, increasing potential for violence and reducing potential for their healthy participation in society.
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p>Same reasoning applies to noncitizens, permanent residents or not. In the less-recent past, most jurisdictions in the US allowed noncitizens to vote. There’s nothing in the Constitution standing in the way of doing that again.
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p>EVERYONE who lives in the space governed, should have a vote in the government that governs that space, regardless of irrelevancies like immigration status or criminal convictions.
But I gotta say, it does stick in my craw a little bit that someone could be convicted of, say, possession, and have his political right to advocate for a repeal of drug laws taken away. Although it’s probably pretty hard to do, it could invite a system where those who would vote against you on an issue x can be undermined merely by making their position on issue x a felony. Taking away rights certainly makes sense for a system of punishment and consequences for lawbreaking, but one school of thought is that imprisonment is more about sequestration and denying the opportunity to repeat or profit from the activity in question. In such a school of thought, the denial of political rights is piling on. The whole point of voting is to give one’s consent to the government to be governed. Such consent isn’t just important because it underlies the legitimacy of any concept of citizenship, but also because it is the underlying mechanism by which the government can be said to be legitimate. So the question becomes, if it is to be understood that prisoners are citizens (with a suspended subset of rights), as our prison population grows, could it be said that our government is ‘less legitimate’?
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p>I just don’t like the systemic implications of what it means to be a citizen prisoner, what it means for our government’s legitimacy, and what it means for the incentives of lawmakers. I also take heed of Cos’s point above… if prisoners are said to still be citizens, and are said to still have some rights, what does it mean to a government built on the consent of the governed that they are not free to advocate for their rights using the fundamental building block of political expression in our system?
I don’t want a permanent resident voting for war, knowing there’s no way he’ll be subject to a draft. Voting for politicians advocating some types of tax she’ll never pay. The franchise is the greatest right of citizenship, and should only go to those with concomitant responsibilities, in my book.
… you point out that it can go both ways. This is trivial because it is a characteristic of any subset of the polity that you can come up with that they might have voting influence on issues that affect them differently (or not at all) than other subsets of the polity. Something true for everyone is trivially true.
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p>I’d argue that the franchise is the ‘greatest’ right only because its the most fundamental right. It’s the right tied to the very concept of citizenship in a western democracy.