Participation should be the default, not a reward. Politicians should not get to define who counts as a constituent.

Participation should be the default, not a reward. Every rule on this site assumes the same thing: the people governed by a decision are the people who get to weigh in on it. That sounds obvious right up until you notice how many parts of the current system quietly decide, in advance, who counts.

The sharpest version of the principle is this: politicians should not get to define their own constituents. That is the through-line connecting district maps drawn to select voters, registration rules calibrated to thin a particular turnout, and calendars set to make voting inconvenient for people who work hourly. None of these announce themselves as disenfranchisement. They just adjust the denominator.

The criminal-justice system is one example of the same pattern, and it is the one people find hardest. If incarceration removes the right to vote, then incarceration becomes a lever on the electorate — and the people holding that lever are the same people the electorate is supposed to judge. I would rather remove the lever than trust everyone who will ever hold it. That means citizens keep the vote: those who have been incarcerated, and, I think, those currently incarcerated.

You do not have to agree with me on that last clause to agree with the principle. The principle is that the boundary of the electorate should not be an instrument available to the people running in the election.