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EOS EOS

Election Obligations & Standards Database

Summary

Limitations on the voting rights of convicted criminals should be proportionate to the offense and the sentence.


Obligations

  • Right and Opportunity to Vote

Election Parts

  • Voting Operations

Issues

  • The Right to Vote, and Voting Operations
  • Facilitation of Voting

Criteria

  • The right to vote was guaranteed by law and was subject only to reasonable and objective restrictions
  • Voting operations facilitated broad participation

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.
  • [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.
  • While limitations are allowed for persons convicted of electoral offences, such restrictions must be limited in time.
  • In a number of countries, convicts are disqualified from voting, but detained individuals who have not been convicted retain the right to vote.
EOS EOS

Election Obligations & Standards Database

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