Yes felons should keep the right to vote, and there are a few points we need to address. Firstly, the reason the felons themselves exist in the first place are because of their surroundings. When an area is economically underdeveloped, the crime rate there is high, and the people in these areas are forced into such measures. This itself is a failure of the government and political party, as a place gets more developed, the crime rate goes down, the felons deserve a chance to have a stake in the environment they are so heavily affected by. If we look at a case of Singapore, just because the government was able to develop the nation, all of the trafficking and crime went down. When a person is able to live comfortably, pay their wages, have food on their table, have access to essentials, there is no reason for crime to arise in the first place. Now the second thing we need to address is that a felony is a very broad term, 1 person may have just robbed a store, trying to feed his family, while the other may have been convicted of sexual assault. You cannot generalize these 2 people onto the same class, just because 1 person was trying to feed their family, they lose their right to vote, and is on the same scale as someone who commits a more grave crime, such as sexual assault, this is injustice in its own, ignoring the need for equity. Thirdly is that prison systems are supposed to be built specifically for rehabilitation, once a felon has been released for prison, if the system/government has done their job correctly, then that person will be rehabilitated, educated, and eliminating the risk of them committing a crime. Felons are also humans, they are just people that have been drove into a desperate decision which they shouldn't have had to make in the first place.

My opponent bases his opinion on a gut feeling, but there are 2 issues with that, firstly, the topic is asking whether felons as a whole should be given the right to vote, we cannot lump in someone who committed a smaller crime with someone who committed a serious crime, it is injustice to give them both the same treatment. Secondly, if the person is classified as a felon, then that means they have objectively paid their debt to society, legal classification as a felon means that person was convicted and charged of a crime, and spent time in prison for it. While i do agree, that letting someone who committed a grave crime vote for our leaders can feel wrong, but we cannot generalize felons as a whole and deny them a systemic right of voting.

And it is earned back over time, a felon cannot vote while he or she is in prison, they can only vote once their prison sentence is over, the time in the prison is meant to be rehabilitation for them, where they are educated, and if the system does its job right, that person should have the privelege of voting. In international law (specifically the ICCPR) deprivation of liberty is justified in such cases, and the deprivation of liberty happens when the person is sent to a prison, where they are revoked of the right to vote for the duration of their sentence.