Bit of a Puzzler

Now that Canadians held in custody in federal prisons to serve out their punishment for crimes they have committed are able to exercise their franchise as citizens of Canada, despite incarceration, they are increasingly doing so. Elections Canada has revealed that the fastest-growing vote came from among those behind bars.

Over 17,000 incarcerated inmates cast ballots in the last federal election in May. The votes for inmates were included among those collected from Canadians living outside the country, those in the military, on diplomatic postings. From researching the votes it became clear that this group of voters seemed to vote overwhelmingly Conservative.

Chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand, while releasing some of the data crunched after the last election doesn't hazard an informed guess with respect to why more prisoners voted, other than to mention that a new elector registration tool assisted prison authorities to identify correct ridings for the inmates, making it easier to complete registration.

Given the fact that the Conservative government is on track to introduce tougher crime legislation that will most certainly impact on the prison population, and that more tax dollars will be evaporating in the process, primarily to build more prisons and extend capacity in existing prisons, it comes as somewhat of a mystery as to why prison inmates would vote Conservative.

But the increase in prison votes from the 2008 election represents the largest number of such votes recorded since the Supreme Court upheld the right of federal inmates to vote, in 2002. Can we construe these results to imagine that those who have committed crimes punishable by over 2 years' imprisonment in federal institutions agree that the punishment meted out is too soft?

That's a bit of a puzzler.