| Brennan Center Democracy Program (3951 words) |
 | Congress's power to enfranchise criminal offenders does not depend on whether all disenfranchisement laws are discriminatorily motivated and is not undermined by the fact that some disenfranchisement laws originally enacted with discriminatory intent have since been reenacted for nondiscriminatory motives. |
| The arbitrariness of these laws for federal election purposes is particularly notable, as the differences in state approaches and the severity of some disenfranchisement laws mean that citizens are being denied one of the core privileges of U.S. citizenship, the right to vote in national elections, based simply on their state of residence. |
| Disenfranchisement of criminal offenders has been justified on the ground that it prevents election fraud, but disenfranchisement is rarely targeted at persons guilty of election offenses, and there are other ways of protecting elections that are less burdensome on the right to vote. |
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