Should the number Representatives in each state be reduced by the number

[cantstandbush]

of felons in each state? Or am I reading this Amendment incorrectly?

Amendment XIV

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

[kenny blankenship]

1. No I think it says that if a state denies the right to vote to numbers of

men, for any reasons not having to do with their criminal records, ie: for purposes of arbitrary disenfrachisement/racial discrimination, then in that case the sum total number of inhabitants, which is used to figure out how many representatives the state gets, will be considered reduced also (by that number), thus keeping the House delegation of that state in proportion to its eligible voters. In other words, you can't disenfranchise a block of people who haven't been found guilty of crimes in the normal process of law, without paying a price for it in your Congressional clout.
States may disenfranchise convicted criminals without any penalty to themselves.
This ban on arbitrary group disenfranchisement was underlined and made much more explicit in Article XV, making this part of Article XIV more or less vestigial. The main application of both this section and Article XV would be of course to prevent ex-slave states of the defeated confederacy from claiming black citizens in their population totals, to get all the Congressional representatives and electors they could, but then denying these same citizens the right to vote for those representatives. Article XV just comes right out and says former slaves, non-whites, and descendants of slaves and other bond servants cannot be denied the right to vote, and that Congress can take measures to punish and emend the behavior of states that attempt to continue this practice.

[cantstandbush]

3. Well in those states, like FL the male felons are DENIED the right to vote

so shouldn't those states lose some reps?

[zbdent]

2. Oooh, that would significantly eliminate some electoral college numbers

since it still removes women and the 18-20.999 year olds, who were allowed to vote via the "dead document" Constitutional amendment in 1972 . . .