Belgium
formerly colombia
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- Joined
- Jan 12, 2013
It's not my place to comment on this with respect to what rights an American should have, but as a general principle I am in favor of this.Sanders says the right to vote should be extended 'even for terrible people' like Boston Marathon bomber
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/22/politics/bernie-sanders-voting-rights/index.html
Interesting discussion about the right to vote. I think it is a worthy discussion and it is good that Bernie is starting the conversation.
In Belgium we have mandatory voting duty. Convicts can lose their right to vote in certain circumstances but the judge must decide on whether to remove the convict's right to vote and if so, decide on the duration of the suspension of that convict's right to vote. In some cases the judge can impose permanent loss of that right.
The judge has a lot of discredtion when it comes to deciding on a convict's right to vote. The upper range of a voting rights suspension would be around 10 years.
In cases where the convict's right to vote is permanently removed, it is generally accompanied with a very severe prison sentence anyway.
Many inmates thus have voting duty just like the rest of us, though they need to take a lot more steps to meet their legal duty. Obviously they can't go to a voting booth from a prison cell, unless the prison organizes one themselves, so their voting process generally comes down to a process of authorizing a trusted contact person to vote in your name.
The fines for not honoring your legal duty to vote are no joke, especially for the poor.
Repeated violations is definitely something you want to avoid at all costs.