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"This should be a broader conversation," said Rashad Robinson, chairman of Color of Change, a progressive civil rights group. "This should be a discussion about who has a say in this country and what we have done to prevent people from expressing themselves in all kinds of ways."
According to the Sentencing Project, Felony's voting laws have a disproportionate impact on black Americans, who are at least four times more likely to lose their right to vote because of themselves than the rest of the adult population . Sanders struggled to convince black voters in 2016 and his campaign is about doing better this time around.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat from New York, tried to refocus the debate on the issue.
Instead of asking, "Should the Boston bomber have the right to vote? " she wrote on Twitter"Try, 'Should a non-violent person stop with a bag of ten cents LOSE the right to vote?'"
This question, she wrote, applies to "many more people".
Critics, meanwhile, said that Sanders may have crossed a line.
"There is a difference between criminals incarcerated for non-violent offenses and those convicted of capital offenses," said Jim Kessler, executive vice-president of policy for Third Way. center left think tank. Mr Sanders' remarks, he added, "seemed a bit of a stumbling block".
Although it is difficult to determine the exact number of convicted criminals in the country, a 2016 report estimated that 6.1 million Americans were denied the right to vote because of the legislation on the abolition of the right to vote. Christopher Uggen, a professor of sociology and law at the University of Minnesota and one of the authors of the report, estimated that about a quarter of these people were incarcerated.
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