Yes, let prisoners vote

When Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that he supported allowing those behind bars to vote from prison, he drew outrage. But Bernie’s plan isn’t as bananas as his critics would make it out to be.

At the most basic, Sander’s argument is simple: citizens have a right to vote. Being in prison doesn’t change that.

To be clear, that is a slightly different conception of the rights afforded to those convicted that has traditionally been understood in the common law . Initially, incarceration was seen as losing rights of citizenship and conceived of as a, at least temporary, “civic death.”