Ex-Cons should not be denined the vote.

First, it should be readily apparent that denying a convicted felon the right to vote is NOT unconstitutional; my opponent has already (and apparently without realizing it) quoted the very text from the Constitution which shows this. Repeating that quotation - the 14th Amendment - here, with the relevant text highlighted: "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, WITHOUT DUE PROCESS OF LAW; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Carefully note that phrase, "without due process of law." The rights enumerated in the Constitution, and specifically in the Bill of Rights, are not and never were intended to be absolute and inviolable. The fact that we imprison people in the first place (a clear violation of the "right to liberty," if that right were to be considered "absolute"), and that such imprisonment and other punishments were clearly and explicitly anticipated by the Constitution, shows this. The States can, through the due process of law, deny various rights as punishment for infractions of the law. But why deny voting rights to convicted criminals? First, this is clearly a part of the punishment prescribed for various crimes (in general, that class of crimes that we call felonies). You know going in that if you commit certain criminal acts, and are convicted of them, that you are going to be stripped of certain rights that otherwise would be yours as a citizen. In short, this is your choice - and if you value your right to vote, it is an additional incentive not to commit the crime in the first place. And from society's perspective, this makes sense. We do not grant the right to participate in government, through voting, to just anyone. You must be of a certain age, and in general you must be of reasonably sound mind. But a convicted criminal has already demonstrated one major shortcoming regarding a quality that any reasonable society should expect of its voters. Simply put, in committing a crime, you are demonstrating that you are NOT willing to abide by your society's laws in the first place - should you then expect to have a hand in the making of those laws? Our system of voting rights is based on the assumption that voters will have an interest in promoting the good of the society as a whole - why should we grant voting right to those who have demonstrated the exact opposite? It might be claimed that the permanent loss of the right to vote constitutes an unusual and extreme punishment, one which is not warranted in many cases. That's fine, and the law already provides a means through which it may be addressed. The ex-convict retains the right to petition the State, through legal channels, for their right to vote to be returned. In many states, the right to vote is automatically restored after a specified time period following completion of the convict's sentence, assuming of course that no further crime has been committed by the individual during that period. Given, then, that the franchise IS very commonly restored to ex-convicts - especially if it is important enough to them that they pursue it - what justification can there be for eliminating this part of the punishment for such demonstrably anti-social individuals?