The 2012 elections marked a momentous time in my life. I had just become eligible to vote, and I was eager to participate politically as an adult in society. Now, in high school I had learned about the fight for equal voting rights, and the way it was taught to me was that now all people have the right to vote regardless of gender, race or property ownership. The fight for equal suffrage seemed to me to be over. I didn’t realize that criminal disenfranchisement, a remnant of the archaic British court’s civil death practice, where felons cannot vote even after their sentence is over, is still in place in some states. Our voting system will remain inherently unequal and our justice system flawed if we continue to allow states to remove one of the few stakes felons have in society: their vote.

Earlier this year, I attended a talk by Bob Hansman about his life with St. Louis youth through the City Faces program. Hansman talked for a period on felon disenfranchisement and how it was marginalizing entire communities. In the 2008 elections, one in 40 adults was ineligible to vote due to his criminal status, and that number rose to one in 13 specifically for African-American adults. In many Southern states, felon disenfranchisement that requires a difficult and protracted process to reinstate your right suppresses the African-American vote. In fact, the chance that the government will reinstate a felon’s voting right is slim to none if there has been a conviction of a violent crime.

Huge numbers of potential voters are banned from the polls with Jim Crow-like ferocity. In Florida, 23 percent of voting-age African-Americans cannot vote. For Virginia and Kentucky, it is 20 percent and 22 percent, respectively. While some supporters of such discrimination claim that the chance that the marginalized felons would vote is very low in the first place, it doesn’t override the ethicality of disenfranchisement after a felon serves his or her sentence. Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that humans have the intrinsic right to participate in their government “through freely chosen representatives.” It is paradoxical that those minorities who come into contact with the punishment of the law most often have a significantly reduced impact on those who represent their political interests in legislatures.

Furthermore, the burden of felon disenfranchisement continues past the obvious voting issue. In Alabama, felons with drug convictions cannot receive food stamps or welfare for life. It is both unjust and irrational to continue punishing a felon after his sentence is due because it puts the felon in a situation where he is likely to commit a crime again.

It is wrong and counterproductive to punish those who have served their sentence and are no longer under the supervision of the state. On top of reducing ethnic minorities’ ability to be represented, because a disproportionate number of minorities commit felonies, these laws perpetuate the social stigma that preserves a system of repeat criminals. To correct our flawed justice system, all states should allow their ex-felons to vote without having to reapply or gain bureaucratic approval and ensure they receive all rights and benefits of other citizens.

The battle for equal suffrage is not done, and it is our duty as educated students to push for a better America with equal voting for all. After all, the free vote forms the rudiments of our democracy.