'Cause freedom costs a buck O' five.

I have to agree with the majority of posts so far. Your Rights should not be denied on a permanent basis. If we expect people who have served their sentence to assimilate back into society, they can't be treated as second-class citizens.

That said, I'm about sick to death of the argument that colored people are disenfranchised by the consequences of criminal convictions. Those consequences existed long before that person chose criminal behavior, and I guarantee those laws don't say anything about race. We have laws here that prohibit discrimination based on the color of one's skin, but the other side of that token is one is not excused from personal accountability based on the color of their skin. Want to avoid consequences that follow being a criminal? Then don't be a criminal.