Should Ex-Convicts be Allowed to Vote?

After I wrote my last blog post "College Education for Inmates?", I have become increasingly more interested in how felons(and ex-felons) are treated by the government. Did you know, that according to a 2010 study "an estimated 5.85 million people with a felony conviction are barred from voting in elections"? That is outrageous to me, especially considering that those six million people make up "2.5 percent of the adult population" of the United States. Those numbers are from an older study, and one could make an educated guess that this number is most likely much higher now. In most states, felons are disenfranchised from the day they are convicted until they finish serving their time AND have made it through the years of probation and/or parole afterwards(Texas included in this group). There are also four states(Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia) that don't allow people to EVER vote in their lifetime againif they've been convicted of a crime. This, to me, is just another example of how this government gives ex-convicts almost no incentive to be a "normal" citizen after they are released. This especially effects committers of non-violent crimes(which are most convicts), as they are not able to be a part of this "self-governing" system that the United States claims to have. This means that even if they wanted these laws changed, there's no way they could act on it. I believe that the American people need to rise up on this issue and get these laws changed. How can we ever claim that serving a prison sentence is a form of rehabilitation when there is absolutely no effort made to help them achieve normalcy? I feel the best solution for this problem is to assess the person that was convicted when their sentence is done, and reinfranchise people on a case-by-case basis. That way, we can at least improve on that promise that normalcy can be acheived when a felon gets out of prison. Without changing this law and many others that pertain to ex-convicts, the prison system will only continue to be filled with offenders that have no hope in the real world. They will continue to be in and out of prison for the rest of their lives. We MUST act on these laws, to make a better world for convicts that are actually trying to better themselves. What do you think?