Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't by John Jr. (books that read to you TXT) 📕

election, some Democrats have led an effort to restore voting rights to former prisoners. If felon voting had been allowed in 2000, it could easily have tipped the election to Gore who, as previously mentioned, lost Florida by a mere 537 votes. Since that election, twenty states have made it easier for felons to vote,83 leaving only ten states with lifetime voting bans for felons.84 Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry introduced the Count Every Vote Act in 2005, which Clinton claimed was “critical to restoring America’s faith in our voting system.”85 The bill, which never became law, included a measure to restore voting rights to “felons who have repaid their debt to society” by completing their prison terms, parole, or probation.

As discussed in Chapter Two, many convicted criminals face severe penalties in addition to a prison sentence. Many jobs are forbidden to felons, often making it hard for them simply to earn a living. Yet, since the 2000 election, the loss of voting rights has suddenly emerged as the most pressing problem that former convicts supposedly face. Restoring voting rights, we are told, is indicative “in so many ways of citizenship that it is more important than owning a gun or being able to hold [a particular job].”86

Felons themselves, however, have other priorities. In addition to finding a job, felons, who frequently live in poor, high-crime neighborhoods, want to be able to defend themselves. In Virginia, the number one reason felons cite for asking for clemency is the desire to regain their right to own a gun.87 The Assistant for Clemency for the Governor of Virginia for 1994 and 1995 reported that restoring “voting rights was never on the application for clemency.”88

According to academic studies, from 1972 to 1996, on average 80 percent of felons would have voted Democratic. An overwhelming 93 percent ostensibly would have voted for Bill Clinton in 1996. In addition to giving the Democrats the White House in 2000, this “felon vote” would have given Democrats control of the Senate from 1986 to 2004.89

But these studies are problematic. Felons’ voting patterns are assumed to be the same as those of non-felons of the same race, gender, age, and educational status. The estimates do not account for the possibility that there is something fundamentally different about felons that could cause them to vote differently. If two people are of the same race, gender, age, and educational status but one person commits murders or rapes, there might be something quite different between these two people that could affect how they vote.

Public Opinion Strategies surveyed 602 adults in Washington State in May 2005. Of the respondents, 102 were felons who had their voting rights restored, while 500 were non-felons. They were asked about their political preferences, as well as background information about their race, gender, education level, religious habits, employment, age, and county of residence. This survey makes it possible to test the assumption that felons and non-felons are essentially the same.90

The survey’s results indicate that felons vote even more frequently for Democrats than one would estimate based solely on their personal characteristics. After accounting for all these factors, I found that felons were 36 percent more likely than non-felons with the same characteristics to have voted for Kerry over Bush and 37 percent more likely to be registered Democratic. While African-American and Asians in Washington tend to vote for “a few more Democrats than Republicans,” felons among those groups vote for “mostly Democrats.” In fact, felons in both groups voted exclusively for Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry.91

While not all felons may be as Democratic as those in Washington State, the survey indicates that the previous estimates understated how frequently felons vote Democratic. Remarkably, it looks as if virtually all felons are Democrats. Felons are not just like everyone else. And the fact that felons are even more likely to vote Democratic than previously believed surely guarantees that some Democratic operatives will continue their efforts to get them to the polls.

Is the Media Biased?

Voting is widely viewed as a civic obligation. People who don’t vote are embarrassed to admit it—post-election surveys routinely show a 20 percent higher turnout than the actual number. Yet, a large portion of eligible voters don’t even bother to vote in presidential elections: 39.3 percent of eligible voters didn’t vote for president in 2004. Even more—45.7 percent—did not vote in 2000,92 while nearly 60 percent did not vote in the 2006 midterm elections.93

Do people abstain from voting because they don’t follow the debate? Fortunately, one does not have to be an expert on every issue in order to cast a well-informed ballot. For information and recommendations, voters can rely on groups that specialize in particular issues. Gun owners can look for advice to the NRA, union members to their unions, and environmentalists to the Sierra Club.94 Furthermore, one can ask friends, neighbors, or family members for further insights.

But most voters, to a greater or lesser extent, depend on the media for much of their information on contemporary issues. This raises a commonly-asked question: Is the media biased? Conservatives such as Ann Coulter, moderates like Bernie Goldberg, and liberals such as Eric Alterman may disagree on virtually everything, but they all concur that media bias exists, and that it significantly alters people’s views. Liberals and conservatives alike keep their own lists of the most biased news sources. They may dispute which outlets are biased toward which side, but these days there seems to be near-unanimous agreement that bias is a common feature of today’s media establishment.

So does media bias matter? To answer this question, we must first determine whether media bias in fact exists.

For many conservatives, the fact that most members of the media classify themselves as liberal Democrats is proof enough of bias. Surveys of journalists by the Pew Research Center found that between 1995 and 2004, the number of journalists who consider themselves conservatives rose slightly from 4 to 7 percent, while the number of self-identified