Imprisonment and voting rights

from The Age EditorialThe right decision for democracy:
"YESTERDAY'S ruling by the High Court, overturning Federal Government legislation introduced last year barring anyone serving a jail term from voting, is an important constitutional decision that re-establishes the most fundamental of all democratic rights. Up to a point: the court upheld earlier legislation banning any prisoners serving jail terms of three or more years from voting.

The irony is that the person who challenged the laws, Vickie Lee Roach, an Aboriginal woman who was jailed for five years in 2004 and is not eligible for parole until next year, remains ineligible to vote. Nevertheless, Ms Roach, in winning the war but not the battle, has had restored to some others the rights that should not have been removed in the first place.

Until yesterday Australia was one of a handful of countries that bans all prisoners from voting. Three years ago, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain was in breach of prisoners' human rights, effectively forcing the government to begin the process of lifting a ban brought in just after transportation to the colonies was abolished."
A table giving an overview ofhow 45 "democratic" countries regulate voting for felons from the site http://www.felonvotingprocon.org/