Summary
Limitations on the voting rights of convicted criminals should be proportionate to the offense and the sentence.
Obligations
Election Parts
Criteria
Quotes
- If conviction for an offence is a basis for suspending the right to vote, the period of such suspension should be proportionate to the offence and the sentence. Persons who are deprived of liberty but who have not been convicted should not be excluded from exercising the right to vote.
- While limitations are allowed for persons convicted of electoral offences, such restrictions must be limited in time.
- [States should foster citizen participation in the electoral process by] abolishing legal provisions providing for general, automatic and indiscriminate disenfranchisement of all serving prisoners irrespective of the nature or gravity of their offences.
- In a number of countries, convicts are disqualified from voting, but detained individuals who have not been convicted retain the right to vote.