Government wants prisoners voting for 2020

Stuff reports:

Justice Minister Andrew Little has revealed some prisoners will be allowed to vote in next year’s general election.

People sentenced to less than three years in prison will have their voting rights restored.

This will return the law to the way it was pre-2010, before the National-led government removed voting rights from all sentenced prisoners.

“We plan to make this change in an Electoral Amendment Bill before the next election, so that people sentenced to less than three years imprisonment can participate in the 2020 election,” Little said.

I disagree with this change. For someone to go to prison, they generally have to either have committed scores of crimes, or a serious offence.

Judges will generally only sentence to prison as a last resort.

Therefore I think being sent to prison is the right threshold at which you lose your rights to vote. It is a more logical threshold than an arbitrary dividing line of less than three years and more than three years.

But I guess the Government needs every vote it can get, so it will rush the change through before 2020.

Supporting this law change will be another nail in the coffin for New Zealand First.