“The United States continues to stand alone among the major industrialized nations in permitting an entire category of citizens – former felons – to be cut off from the democratic process. The practice of many states denying voting rights to ex-felons represents a vestige from a time when suffrage was denied to whole classes of our population based on race, gender, religion, national origin, and property. Over the past two centuries, however, these restrictions, along with post-Civil War exclusions such as the poll tax and literacy requirements, have been eliminated to conform with our basic American notion of equality. I believe that the time has also come to eliminate this class voting restriction and to join the community of nations in this regard.”