Felons and Votings

I just read this totally interesting article in Time (online of course, and I apologize because I don't have the time to find it again to link) about felons and voting. Apparently there are states where you're banned from voting for forever if you commit a felony. Part of me is like, "OK, that makes sense. Who wants criminals running part of the system?" But, this article goes on to state that there are (for example) people who've written bad checks, agreed to pay them, but have still been convicted of a felonious crime and are unable to vote because of some additions to this particular state's constitutional list of felonies. This makes me think that I was initially wrong. The article ends up by saying the criminals that have served their time in jail and paid their debt to society should not only be allowed to vote, that they should be required to vote.

After thinking about this for awhile, I think that it would push more people to the polls as well. Because . . . who would want a bunch of criminals to run part of the system?