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That seems like one of the least legitimate reasons to deny access to the ballot. "Convicted of a felony" is just another way of saying "the people currently in power, some of whom have explicit allegiances to other political parties, have determined that they think you really, really suck."
If we're going to restrict ballot access based off anything, it should be popularity, based solely on the idea that spending ballot space on someone who is unlikely to win is a waste of resources.
At least a conviction requires a trial by jury. Biden can order the Justice Department to indict anyone he wants, indictments are not convictions.
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Welcome to the Prison Abolitionist movement, we have pamphlets.
If 'convicted of a felony' is enough reason to be kept in prison and used as slave labor for your entire natural life, it's enough reason to not be on a Primary ballot.
I'm perfectly happy saying it's not enough reason for either of those things, but I will be a stickler about consistency on this one. Anyone who wants to treat the law and courts as reliable arbiters of Justice on a Monday had better do the same thing on a Tuesday, or else expect a finger-wagging.
Barring someone from running for office is not necessarily a lighter punishment than putting someone in prison. When you bar an individual from running, you are not only punishing that one person, but you are also punishing an unbounded number of people who would have otherwise voted for him.
Additionally, different kinds of transgressions disqualify you from different kinds of privileges. It's entirely consistent to say that plagiarism disqualifies you from professorships but not from playing professional baseball, while placing insider bets disqualifies you from playing professional baseball but not from being a professor. Similarly, one can be okay with murderers appearing on the presidential ballot while they sit in prison, provided they are popular enough. It would be entirely consistent to believe that committing murder disqualifies you from not being in prison, but that the only thing that disqualifies you from being on the ballot is not being popular enough to make your appearance worth the overhead.
(That said, I have a very dim view of the law and courts and have generally pro-prison-abolitionist views, so there's that.)
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Isolated demand for rigor.
Right, that's what I should have said. They're applying an isolated demand for rigor on the concept of 'convicted of a felony' when it's their guy getting convicted.
No, I'm questioning why "convicted of a felony" should be connected to "should not appear on a ballot". I firmly believe that criminal background should have no implication on political privileges. Typically this comes up in the context of voting rights for felons (which is left-coded) but I believe the exact same thing when it's a right-aligned cause.
In fact it's not connected to appearing on a ballot, convicted felons can get elected to any office they want.
There's a specific narrow provision about Officers of the State being barred from election if they commit the specific crime of Insurrection, which is what's being used here. I think it dates to the Civil War or something.
The comment I originally responded to proposed the following restriction:
The status quo, where Eugene Debs can run for President from prison, is my desired state of things.
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