Felons the swing vote in Tennessee?

Posted by Moonage on 05 Sep 2006 | Tagged as: US Regional Politics

By way of Michelle Malkin:

100,000 Ex-Felons Gain Right To Vote In Tennessee - In Time For November Elections

On September 5, 2006 at the Clarksville - Montgomery County Board of Education, Building 621 Gracey Ave., Clarksville, TN, starting at 6:30 p.m. a special panel of guests that will include:

Representatives from the Election Commission, TN Bar Association, The Brennan Center for Justice, as well as a Former Convicted Felon who will vote for the first time in his life, will participate in a "Get Your Right to Vote Back" Town Hall Meeting.

What was once the country’s most confusing voter restoration system, with six different procedures and sub-categories for restoration, has now been streamlined into a single restoration process which will give back the state’s 100,000 former felons their right to vote, has many of them flocking to town hall meetings hosted by the ACLU & NAACP across the state.

The meeting is expected to be attended by Former Felons, Family Members of Former Felons, Attorneys, Law Enforcement, City & County Officials, Judges, Politicians, Church Clergy, Etc. and a tentatively scheduled special appearance by TN Governor Phil Bredesen, who signed the bill into law in June 2006.

The League of Women Voters will be on hand to conduct voter registration for Former Felons and any other potential voters in the Community.

We urge you, the Media, to come out to cover and learn more about this important voting rights issue.

UNLOCK YOUR VOTING RIGHTS TODAY!

Now, Michelle asks if ex-cons will be the swing vote in Tennessee this year.  What she doesn’t do is speculate on which races they will swing.  Here’s the consumate guess from yours truly.

In the Governor’s race:

I’m going to place my bet on the woman’s who’s name sounds like something illegal who is advocating something illegal to take every single one of the votes.  It may not be enough to push her over the top, but it should be interesting to see how well she does relative to years’ past for pro-pot independents.

For Senate:

Now, I’m gonna bet an attorney has no chance in hell of garnering a single ex-con vote.  Gonna bet teh Conservative Activist is in the same boat.  And, I doubt a Peace Activist appeals much either.  That leaves Ed Choate as the prohibitive favorite to get them all, since he stands for nothing.

For Congress, First District:

This one’s a tough call.  However, I’m tending to think they would most likely identify with the Auto mechanic since a lot of them would have some experience working with license plates.  Not sure what the district distribution of votes would be, so no clue how big of a factor this swing vote would be in the Congressional races.

District Two:

Something tells me the warehouse worker’s gonna get this vote here.

District Three:

Zach Wamp’s a career politician, Benedict’s a computer programmer.  Both careers I think appeal to the average ex-con.  I’d call this one a split.

District Four:

Davis is not only a lifetime politician, he’s from Byrdstown.  I know Byrdstown very well, he’ll get all the felons’ votes.  Every single one of them.

District Five:

Jim Cooper’s a lifetime politician with a background that doesn’t scream criminal activity.  He won’t appeal to the felons, but the fact he’s running against a paralegal will probably appeal to some, with Scott Knapp’s possible organized labor connections appealing to the rest.  My guess is Scott gets more than Cooper, but not enough to matter.

District Six:

Bart Gordon is an attorney, he’s screwed.  David Davis is the alternative.  The fact he’s so incredibly obscure on the internet probably appeals to the felon vote.  The Independents are a wash.  My guess, Davis gets a bump from the criminal crowd.

District Seven:

In no other race will the careers be as meaningless and unappealing to a bunch of cons than this one.  However, Blackburn is fun to look at.  To boot, she’s a lifelong politician which should appeal to the felons.

District Eight:

I don’t think one single felon will even bother to vote in this race.  I really, really, don’t.  ( 9/7/06 update )  If the comment I received is indeed who he says it is, Farmer deserves some merit for not only appealing to the felon vote, but actually giving felons a voice in government by hiring one!  I will admit my ignorance of that race led me to make my original "assumption" based purely on the career of the candidate exclusively.  I did not ponder at all the other efforts candidates may be making to appeal to this swing vote.  For that, unless I’ve been duped, I do apologize to those candidates I have mis-judged.

District Nine:

  • Steve Cohen (D) - State Sen., Ex-Shelby County Commissioner, Attorney & ‘96 Candidate
  • Mark White (R) - Businessman, GOP Activist & ‘04 State Rep. Candidate
  • Jake Ford (Independent) - Pharmaceutical Sales Representative & Brother of Congressman Ford
  • Jesse Neely (Independent)

Cohen can forget this block.  For that matter, I think everyone but Jake Ford can scratch this block.  Not only is Jake trying to "keep it in the family", he sells drugs for a living.

This is a bad idea folks.  Felons lose their voting rights for a REASON.  Their respect for law is not what it should be.  The people they vote for, get this, make the laws.  Do the idiots in Tennessee not see the obvious conflict here?  This is wrong folks, just plain wrong.  If you’re not gonna live by the laws, you should NOT be allowed to affect those laws. Period.  And no matter how many times they repeat it, there is no such thing as an ex-felon.

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9 Responses to “Felons the swing vote in Tennessee?”

  1. on 06 Sep 2006 at 4:20 am 1.Syntax said …

    You didn’t do a lot of research on this huh? Let me guess, you relied on Michelle Malkin to tell you the truth which is like relying on Bin Laden to pilot a plane. Not a good idea at all. She left out a tiny little fact like she does all the time and for good reason, all but three (3) states allow ex-felons the right to vote. If you did your time and served your full sentence, you have your voting privaleges reinstated. Florida, Texas and Alabama I believe are the only states that do not reinstate your voting rights after time served. There may be more but only a couple more. So if you think this is a bad idea, you’re a few decades too late.

    Next time, research anything Michelle Malkin spews out. There is a reason why she allows no feedback or reader forums on her website.

  2. on 06 Sep 2006 at 8:48 am 2.Moonage said …

    You didn’t research much as well, she does allow feedback, which is why I use her site. This thread here is trackbacked to it.

    What she is complaining about, and I am as well, is not the legalization of felons, which is something I am obviously opposed to, but the intentional RECRUITMENT of felons to vote. What’s the point in that? The post I made here didn’t advocate that recruitment, it mocked WHO would benefit from such a “voter drive”. The point being that felons in a lot of cases would have a vastly different criteria to vote than the well-being of their society which they have obviously not concerned themselves with in the first place or they wouldn’t be felons. It just illustrates to me in very obvious fashion that allowing felons to vote is a bad idea whether it’s legal or not and those states that allow it should re-think the laws that allow it.

    The bottom line is this is yet another example that people don’t want to accept the fact that people should be held accountable for their actions. Commit a felony, serve some time, and it’s totally forgiven. That’s not right. Serving time is not repaying society for the crime, it’s just putting someone in containment for a period of time so they can think about what they’ve done. It in no way assures society that they won’t do it again. And, more often than not, they will.

    But, in most states, until they do it again, they can help determine the laws that put them in prison in the first place.

    That just ain’t right.

  3. on 06 Sep 2006 at 10:21 pm 3.StormWarning said …

    In District Three, I’d rather take a computer geek over an opportunistic former Democrat turned Republican “southern gentleman” without the manners he was born with (personal experience).

    In District Two, from what I know of him, Duncan is a pretty good guy.

    Just my opinions. I can’t vote for or against either of them.

  4. on 07 Sep 2006 at 8:42 am 4.Moonage said …

    Just to make it clear, I am not endorsing any of the candidates for any of the offices. Just my take on how felons might have a different perspective on the political process than the average voter. There is no guarantee some of the average voters don’t have the same criteria.

  5. on 07 Sep 2006 at 10:29 am 5.John Farmer said …

    Now wait a cotton picking minute. My campaign “manager” is an ex-felon (Angelo Cobrasci) and I support automatic restoration of rights for ex-felons. And anyone who wears a black eye patch has got to be a little shady.

    So I think ex-felons would certainly swing my way :)

  6. on 07 Sep 2006 at 1:35 pm 6.Moonage said …

    Made some adjustments. Better?

  7. on 27 Sep 2006 at 12:15 pm 7.Roberta said …

    When it comes to people that have broken the laws and spent time in prison, you can’t lump them ALL into one neat little bundle. I cannot think of one person that has not broken some type of law in their lifetime. I’m sorry, anyone that has served their time should be considered “rehabilitated” until their actions prove this wrong. This follows along the line of “innocent until proven guilty”, wouldn’t you think?

    If a person is a repeat offender then yeah, I would agree with permanently revoking their voting privileges. Just because someone commits a felony does not mean that they are a habitual criminal. Isn’t that what our justice system is about? They set the time limit on your repayment to society? If they feel the crime a person commits is a life long sentence, yep, no rights, but, if you have served your sentence then why should one have to “pay” a price for the rest of their life? You are assuming that all “criminals” are the scum of the earth.

    When you say that there is no such thing as an ex-felon, it makes it sound as though if a person commits a crime once then they will forever have that “urge” to do so again and again. A “felon” is not the same as an alcholic or a drug addict. And, would you not say that if someone is actually caught and punish this might actually curb the idea of committing a crime again?

  8. on 27 Sep 2006 at 12:55 pm 8.Moonage said …

    There’s a big difference between misdemeanor crimes and felonies.

    “This follows along the line of “innocent until proven guilty”, wouldn’t you think?”

    No, I don’t. They have been proven guilty of a serious crime against society. Why should they then be allowed to affect the laws that they broke? Someone getting 50 speeding tickets isn’t the issue here. Felonies are crimes against society.

    “When you say that there is no such thing as an ex-felon, it makes it sound as though if a person commits a crime once then they will forever have that “urge” to do so again and again. A “felon” is not the same as an alcholic or a drug addict. And, would you not say that if someone is actually caught and punish this might actually curb the idea of committing a crime again?”

    Once convicted as a “felon”, unless pardoned, you are always a “felon”. Just because someone might see the light AFTER they’ve been convicted doesn’t totally absolve them of what they did BEFORE they saw the light. They can contrivute to society in all kinds of ways to atone for their sin(s), what I do not want them doing is having an affect on those laws they broke in the first place.

    What prompted this post was not so much the individual felon’s right to vote, it was the ACLU and NAACP targeting felons. What if some candidate did the same thing? You’d have an elected official, capable of writing laws, beholden to people who broke those laws. That’s a conflict of interest. It gets even simpler than that, as I pointed out in the post, If it’s a close race, whoever has best access to that target group could pull enough of them to win. I didn’t come up with the concept of felons being the swing vote in Tennessee, that came from someone else who has the same concern I do. I just tried to illustrate my concern more graphically.

    So, bottom line, I agree in that they can be good citizens. But, I don’t want them affecting the laws. I’ve managed to go my entire life without even a hint of a felony. It’s really not that hard to do.

  9. on 24 Oct 2006 at 9:07 am 9.StormWarning said …

    Further to my dislike of Congressman Wamp, I found this letter to the editor under “opinions” in the Chattanoogan:

    Benedict 3, Wamp 0
    posted October 20, 2006

    We have recently been treated to five reasons to vote for Brent Benedict and five reasons to re-elect Zach Wamp. If I may, I would like to evaluate both of them.

    #5 Success in Business - Mr. Wamp and Mr. Benedict both have had strong careers and have held various positions and served their respective churches. Score: Tie or slight edge to Mr. Wamp

    #4 Consistent and Strong Foreign Policy - Both candidates support our troops in Iraq and elsewhere. Neither has suggested “cut and run.” Both agree that winning Iraq is essential. Mr. Wamp believes that rubber-stamping the Bush Iraq policy is the way to get there. Mr. Benedict feels that changes must be made. Score: Mr. Benedict by a mile

    #3 Second Amendment - Both candidates support the Second Amendment powerfully. Score: Tie

    #2 Fiscal Responsibility - House Republicans have led an unprecedented expansion of government, increased spending astronomically, and wiped out the surplus.All while reducing taxes and creating massive deficits. Brent calls for a return to true “conservative” fiscal policy as opposed to the current “neo-conservative” one. Score: Brent

    #1 Integrity - Mr. Wamp signed the Contract With America including term limits. Later, he called this a “mistake”. I could have accepted this but he followed up the “mistake” comment with one declaring that he still supported term limits but as they don’t apply to everyone, he would not apply them?@to himself. Score: Brent Benedict

    I score it as Mr. Benedict 3, Mr. Wamp 0. I would love to hear how others score it.

    Geoff Dean
    geoff@al-pha.com

    Although I doubt it will happen, personally, I look forward to the day that the “little guy” loses his seat.

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