Felons to get voting rights restored in Iowa

This seems to have escaped any notice in the Wisconsin media, but our neighbors in Iowa are about to restore voting rights to about 80,000 ex-felons.

Iowa has had one of the most restrictive laws in the country, requiring ex-felons to petition the governor to have their voting rights restored. Once Gov. Tom Vilsack signs the order on July 4, Iowa will be the same as Wisconsin, where voting rights are automatically restored once a felon has completed his/her sentence, including probation or parole.

According to the Right to Vote Campaign, which works to reverse laws preventing felons from voting, 14 states automatically restore voting rights to felons after they are released from prison; four states restore rights after ex-felons complete parole; and 18 states do so after they complete their prison sentence, parole and probation.

Voting by felons who will still under state supervision is one of the "voting fraud" claims from last November's election in Wisconsin. Two hundred ineligible felons apparently voted in Milwaukee. There is no system here to keep track of who is ineligible to vote because of felony convictions. Unless the person is in jail, it's the honor system on election day -- and it is almost impossible to prove that a felon on supervision knew that it was illegal to vote. Lacking that, there is no prosecution.

Photo IDs, by the way, would not help a bit. The felons who voted illegally didn't use phony names. They just voted.

Which brings me back to a question I asked long ago: Instead of spending time, energy and money dreaming up some Rube Goldberg system to keep felons off the voter list, why don't we just let them vote once they are not in confinement? Fourteen other states already do that.

Vilsack pointed to research showing that ex-prisoners who vote are less likely to end up back in prison. "When you've paid your debt to society, you need to be reconnected and re-engaged to society," Vilsack, a Democrat, said -- at a news conference, where he was joined by Democratic and Republican legislators who had pushed for the change.

Imagine that.

The NY Times story.