Resolved: In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote.

Thank you for the challenge and good luck. Before beginning, there is a piece of evidence of his that needs updating. It is actually 5.3 million people that can not vote because of felonies, not 3.9 like stated in his last speech. However, this is 2006 and the number may be even greater now. http://www.time.com... My case/his case… I oppose: Resolved: In a democratic society, felons ought to retain the right to vote. I. Value- Fairness Within this round, you will see how it is not fair to give equal voice to someone who has kept their trust with the society, and someone who has not. In essence, when someone commits a felony, they deserve to lose the right to vote. Also, you will see that in order to get a FAIR decision, you must eliminate the felon vote. Please cross apply his point about how there 5.3 million felons who do not have the right to vote. Do you really want that overwhelming factor to decide most every election for the rest or your life? II. Criterion- Just Deserts Just Deserts is basically giving people what they justly deserve. In this round, you will see that people don't deserve the right to vote after they have committed a felony. Why? Because a right is something you have until you lose it (like gun rights)… And since voting decides who will run our country, it is too important to put in the hands of felons (5.3 MILLION). Give not only the felons, but also the society what they deserve and vote CON. ============================================= Since my arguments go so well against his, I'm just going to attack his case right now. Against Value- Equality --> I immediately challenge my opponent to say when we treat any felons any differently than a regular citizen. EVERYONE was given citizenship and the FELONS lost it. If a regular citizen committed a felony tomorrow, then he/she would be treated EQUALY and would also lose his/her right to vote. In other words, HIS value is flowed to the CON side! Against Criterion- Democracy --> Democracy still exists whether or not you vote pro OR con. However, on the con side, it exists in a much better form… Take for example, the 5.3 million that currently can not vote. Let's say that a candidate was up that was willing to be EXTREMELY less harsh against criminals. The extra 5.3 million votes that he would get would create would be enough to change ANY election in his/her favor. But is that what we want to be deciding our elections? Another angle to look at is the fact that more candidates would begin to be more persuaded toward being nice to criminals since there would be much more votes that they could get (since politicians are nothing without the voters). Definitions seem fine… I will just use common knowledge from the judges for definition unless abuse comes from my opponent (or even from me). Against Contention I: His first contention is completely useless because we will always have a democracy regardless of if felons can vote or not. A democracy is something that gives people a choice, and the felons already made their choice of going against our society, and because of that, they do not deserve the right to vote for people who help (or hinder) our society. Against Contention II: 5.3 MILLION voters would put the election into the hands of not only criminals, but FELONS!!!!! Politicians would inevitably reach out to these voters by crafting their views to be likeable by them. Against Contention III: The problem with his quote is that we're not dealing with voting qualification, but DISqualification (which is two totally different things). Then he goes on to say that this will lead to a lot of people not being able to vote. Well, this law has been around for a long time and it hasn't been blown out of proportions. It still only restricts felons. No discrimination at all, men, women, white, black, Republican, Democrat, all felons can't vote. And as far as the amendments go, realize that it says that we can't DENY these people the right to vote if (then it lists various things) but NONE of them have to do with laws they have broken. In the end, felons ought to NOT receive the right to vote because they broke a serious enough law to lose the right. If someone abuses a gun, we take it away from them for good reason. If someone abuses society (through becoming a felon), then we take away their right to vote. It's only fair because we DON'T want felons to run our society. Please vote con… Thank you!