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

I will start with my opponent's case, and then move on to defending my case. Definitions: Democratic Society, Observations- My opponent is wrong when he says that there are lots of democratic societies, but there can be "a democratic society". Just as if I say, "There are many apples," and then I say "In an apple, there should be a worm": Here, I saying there are many apples, and I am saying that one, any one, of the apples should have a worm inside. Thus, I can say there are many democratic societies, and that in any one of these democratic societies, felons ought to retain the right to vote. Felony- As I showed before, a felony does not violate John Locke's social contract theory, and therefore the definition of felon should not have anything to do with the social contract theory. Rather, as stated in law dictionaries, the definition is" a person who has committed a felony, which is a grave offense against society, such as murder or burglary, and commonly punished by imprisonment of more than a year, or death." Social Contract- As I said before, there are three social contracts, with conflicting views; Hobbs thought all men were evil, Rousseau thought some were good, and some were evil, and Locke thought all men were good. These conflicting views cannot all be applied to a democracy because they will have contradictions, and it is impossible to join contradictions together. Vote- Vote is not about the people taking advantage of the right of equal representation. It is about the people expressing their will or choice. This is shown in the UN Security, where 5 permanent members hold more influence than other members because they can veto any resolution (http://www.globalpolicy.org...). This means that if the majority of the members support a resolution, but one of the permanent members such as France vetoes it, then the whole resolution is dropped. This shows how the permanent members have more influence than the other members, and thus do not have equal representation. Therefore, this example shows how the minor countries do not have equal representation and cannot take advantage of the equal representation, yet they vote, because this expresses their wills and choices. This supports my definition of vote but not the Neg's. Value- "my opponent drops my point that in order to protect these democratic values we must have safety." -First, I have checked my opponent's whole case, and he never states that point. -My opponent agreed that democracy was inherent because he did not argue it, he cannot change his answer -However, safety does not relate to the resolution because disallowing a felon to vote in a democratic society is not related to safety at all, unless the Negative wants to venture to say that a felon's voting will harm the safety of a society. If the Neg. chooses to follow that path of reasoning, then he would be supporting the idea that a person should only vote if they can make a good decision. This claim is undemocratic and illogical, yet without it, safety will not relate to the resolution. Thus, safety fails as a value. Value Criterion- I am not saying that it doesn't represent a philosopher, I am saying that the general use of the Social Contract theory allows me to destroy his point by disproving that any one of the Social Contract theories do not support his claims, which I will again show in my attack on the First contention. C1- "He doesn't understand that all social contract philosophers accept the fact that if you do not uphold your obligation to follow the law, then you violate the social contract" This is completely false. As I said before, Locke stated that a felon is still within the Social Contract if they break the law, but are punished. Thus, since they are already punished by imprisonment, they stay within the Social Contract, so his first contention falls, and as I said before, so does his VC C2- I am not saying that the felons' votes are not important. What I am saying, is that if the felons really wanted to all vote for a dictator as a president, the rest of the people in America would obviously vote for the candidate who was not a prisoner. They would obviously not say, "Oh, there's a dictator running for president, let's all go vote for him." This shows that if the felon's did really vote for a bad choice, the other people's voting would counteract that bad choice. Furthermore, this only assumes that all felons are bad, and will always make bad decisions, which is not true. -Also, the resolution also does not talk about the right to equal representation; the only right it talks about is the right to vote, which we are debating about right now Defending my own case: V: I have attacked my opponent's value and have successfully defended my value in my rebuttal. VC: My value criterion of equality is the correct value criterion as I said because it is inherent in the definition of my value, democracy. Furthermore, the resolution only says a democratic society, so if a democratic society was created where felons are not jailed, but only fined, then there would be equality. -I have disproved his Social Contract as a VC. C1: I have just showed that equal right is a good VC, and that felons do not have to be denied equal liberty. As well, the US is still a democratic society, and it does not have to be ideal, so it can be used as an example. C2: The first line of the Neg's attack," My opponent dropped the attack on my opponents second contention was dropped that they have access to equal rights." This line doesn't make sense. According to my understanding of the line, it means that I have dropped the attack against my second contention. However, that is not true; I have not dropped the attack on my second contention at all. He has ignored the lines I wrote for my defense before, so I ask you to look again at the second round, Aff defense of Contention two. Also, I have again shown before that the felons have not violated the social contract before. C3: I have already showed that equality stands in my VC. Also, the resolution in no way whatsoever states that the felon has to be punished in a democratic society. According to the idea that my opponent has not argued of "once a felon, always a felon", a felon could potentially come from a dictatorship that happened before a democracy because he would have been punished by the dictatorship, but the status of felon would have carried throughout his lifetime, into the democratic society C4: The resolution does not mention disenfranchisement, only the right to vote. Thus, the right to vote can be for anything. Also, voting is not just for a government, people can hold votes for everything. Finally, my opponent claims that felons are mentally incompetent to vote; this is obviously not true, take, for example, Chuck Colson (http://www.pfm.org...) which shows that he is in every mentally competent since he has changed. Vote AFF.