It is unconscionable that released prisoners should be deprived of the vote. They have been tried, convicted (sometimes for ridiculous things like selling a small amount of marijuana), and have paid the price for their misdemeanors. The fact is that banning ex-cons falls into the same classification as other voter suppression – an attempt by good-ole-boy politicians to prevent people of color voting. By 2014 the United States should have achieved one-man-one vote.
By the way, the District of Colombia has a population about 600,000, bigger than Wyoming. The inhabitants have no vote for Congress, another example of the hypocrisy about “freedom and democracy” and one that most Americans know nothing about. When will the country finally honor the intent of the Founders and extend democracy to disadvantaged people, such as residents of DC?
Epicureanism stands for fairness and equal opportunity, and that means, among other things, opportunity for citizens to vote.
It is always the loud-mouthed people who talk about liberty who are most active in suppressing it in among those with whom they disagree.
If the District of Columbia had a majority of Republican voters you can be sure that A Republican Congress would be falling over themselves to give residents the vote, and it would be the Democrats who would block it. Hypocrisy rules, as usual.