Voting rights of convicted persons

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The right to vote of convicted persons is a legal concept that grants convicted persons the right to vote in local or national elections. A penalty of revocation of the right to vote may be imposed on a convicted person, for his or her period of detention or beyond.

In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights held that the general and automatic prohibition of the right to vote of detainees was a deprivation of political rights incompatible with the requirements of democracy (Hirst). Nevertheless, in 2012, several states still provide such a possibility (including in the United States), including seven states within the Council of Europe (including the United Kingdom).

Legislation

Canada
In Canada, the Supreme Court, in 1992 and unanimously, repealed a legislative provision prohibiting all inmates from voting. The law was amended to prohibit any prisoner sentenced to more than two years in prison from voting. It was once again annulled by the Supreme Court on 31 October 2002, the President of the Court Beverley McLachlin considering, in the words of the ECHR, that "the government had failed to establish a rational link between the deprivation of the right to vote and the objectives pursued by the measure, namely, to increase civic awareness and respect for the rule of law and to impose an appropriate sanction. »

France

United States

In the United States, with differences between states, convicted persons, whether in prison or not, are banned from voting. For example, 13 per cent of black men in the United States. Apart from Maine and Vermont, all states in the United States prohibit the right to vote for prisoners. The Supreme Court considered such a prohibition to be constitutional in its 1974 decision, while the civil rights movement was still strong. Nevertheless, in 1985, the Court invalidated a provision of the Alabama prohibiting the right to vote of detainees, by considering unconstitutional any restrictive provision that was either racially motivated or led to racial discrimination.

Thus, in 2011, only two U.S. states provided for a lifetime deprivation of the right to vote in the event of a criminal conviction, which could only be lifted by a pardon from the governor or local legislature, namely Kentucky and Virginia. This provision has recently been amended in Kentucky as a process to restore the political rights of convicted persons has been implemented. In Florida, reforms had been prepared in 2007, but Republican Governor Rick Scott put an end to them, making Florida the most restrictive state in terms of voting rights for convicted people. In Iowa, Governor Tom Vilsack issued an executive decree in 2005 providing for a rehabilitation procedure, and the Supreme Court of Iowa affirmed the general principle