• jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The law makes sense. If someone is a convicted felon, changes their name to avoid the inevitable Google searches, and decides to run for office, that former name absolutely should be disclosed.

    What’s weird here is the limit of “past 5 years” and “excluding marriage.”

    So totally cool for a felon to change their name MORE than 5 years ago, or, simply get married, no disclosure required.

    So what even is the purpose of the law?

    • girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      So, what you’re saying is… the law actually doesn’t make sense. It should be that if they were a convicted felon, then that should be disclosed along with their old name. All of the other conditions here seem unnecessary unless we want to include name changes in general, which then they need to add a space on the actual form to include this.

    • TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 months ago

      I think it would make more sense if you either

      a) couldn’t change your name as a convicted felon

      b) your new name would be updated in the records maybe?

    • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Doesn’t being a convicted felon disqualify you from running in any case - or is that just voting?

        • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yikes - that really highlights the US’s priorities…

          If you’re a felon, you can’t represent yourself, but if you’re a felon with money, you can represent everyone.

          No taxation without representation, and no slavery… but felons aren’t real people.

          Private companies profit from confining people as cheaply as possible and exploiting their slave labour - all above board.

          The land of the free has nearly a quarter of the world’s prison population… but only ~4% of the world’s people.