I hope that you'll support S. 3640, the Democracy Restoration Act.  This
important bill would restore federal voting rights to felons who have served
their sentences.  Currently, the decision as to whether to restore voting
rights, including the right to vote in federal elections, is left to the
states.  Prison sentences have limited terms precisely because the expectation
is that felons can and will be rehabilitated.  Recognition of such
rehabilitation must include restoration of all rights and responsibilities of
citizenship, including the right to participate in democratic government.  The
alternative is a society that harbours a permanently disenfranchised political
underclass, many of whom have lost the right to vote as a result of non-violent
crimes -- actions that, quite arguably, might not continue to be defined as
felonies were they the subject of open and complete political discourse and
participation.  Currently, then, we have a society whose closed political
discourse defines certain acts as crimes, whilst those who have in the past
committed such crimes are permanently excluded from the very political discourse
that has defined them as criminals.  The Democracy Restoration Act would end
this exclusionary and anti-democratic process.