Felony Voting II
Last October, I had a longish post about why not allowing felons to vote was a good idea. Among the reasons is that the average citizen should dislike the idea of politicians catering to a voting bloc whose primary interests include easier criminal laws since that would be to their benefit. Michelle Malkin, however, reveals that felon voting doesn't even have to be legal for this to occur. It turns out that in Washington state during the last election, at least 544 felons illegally cast ballots. That's just the districts dominated by the Republican candidate, so you can imagine how many more there must be… a total of 946 have thus far been identified. Such a small number may seem inconsequential, but when you consider that the gubernatorial race was won by the Dem by only 129 votes (after the Repub originally won by 252), it's much more significant. Previous studies have shown that felons overwhelmingly vote Democrat, so the illegal Washington votes alone could have turned the tide of victory.
Given this, then, I wonder if the Dems would be tempted to cater to the illegal felon vote since corruption, negligence, and/or bureaucratic foul-ups will allow the felons to participate in elections anyway. I'd like to give the Dem candidates the benefit of the doubt, but when electoral victory is on the line, politicians make strange compromises with their consciences.
Some Dems already cater to the legal felon vote when they have the chance. Marion Barry is the best example of this that I can think of as the reason he still holds office is that felons and their associates vote for him.
Go read soundpolitics.com to get the details on how screwed up the Washington state election was. The final count was probably off by several thousand votes that should not have been counted.
Comment by Pete The Elder — 5/5/2005 @ 5:03 pm