Should people with felony convictions automatically regain voting rights after serving their sentences?

The Constitution leaves voter qualifications mostly to the states, and that is not a loophole, it is the design. People in different states genuinely disagree about what completing a sentence requires, and a one-size rule from Washington would erase that debate instead of settling it. When Florida voters passed Amendment 4 and when Virginia's governors issued restoration orders, those were state decisions reflecting state values, which is how a federal system is supposed to work. Pew Research has found broad but not universal support for restoration, with real disagreement about violent offenses and timing. Automatic nationwide restoration trades that democratic argument for a mandate, and on questions this contested, the argument is the point.