Polls show Democrats sliding far left on issues like race, health care, abortion, economic inequality and immigration.

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, the standard-bearer for socialist ideas for years, is now supported by a freshman class of House Democrats and a boatload of liberal presidential candidates favoring far leftist agendas.

A month ago, many Democrats pushed for lowering the voting age to 16. But last week at a town hall event in Boston, Sanders went way past that.

When asked by Ann Carlstein, a Harvard University student, if felons like marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should have the right to vote from prison, Sanders said that prisoners should be allowed to cast a ballot from their cells no matter what offense they committed.

That means Sanders would allow the voting privilege to the 1.5 million or so currently incarcerated felons in U.S. prisons, including muggers, rapists, murderers, drug dealers and users, car thieves, bank robbers and burglars.

Sanders explained that the Constitution of his state, Vermont, has enfranchised prisoners from the beginnings. Maine also allows prisoners to cast a ballot from their cells no matter what offense they committed. Since 2016, California has allowed felons serving time in county jail to vote.

In most states, felons cannot vote while they are in prison, but voting rights are restored automatically upon release from prison in the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Utah.

In Colorado and Connecticut, prisoners are allowed to vote after they complete their parole. New Jersey and Texas allow them to vote when they are no longer on parole or probation.

The right to vote issue is a question that each of the 20 Democratic candidates will eventually have to answer during their presidential runs.

At first, Kamala Harris, the liberal California senator, sided with Sanders on the issue of allowing felons to vote, but a few days later she reconsidered, saying that there has to be serious consequences for the most extreme types of crimes. She added the issue was “complex” and said she was going to “talk to experts” about the matter.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she supports a constitutional right to vote but is “not there yet” on prisoners voting.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, opposes giving prisoners access to the ballot box, explaining at a town meeting that part of the punishment when you’re convicted of a crime and you’re incarcerated is that you lose certain rights.

In Democratic Hawaii, a measure to let prisoners vote didn’t make it out of the Legislature this year.

And in New Mexico, a bill to restore some felons’ voting rights progressed, but only after a provision to let prisoners vote was removed. The amended bill still died in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. Although he’s a strong advocate of voting rights for those released from prison, state Sen. Bill O’Neill of New Mexico only signed on as a sponsor after the prison-voting clause was removed.

“That’s too far for me,” O’Neill said about giving prisoners the right to vote.

Heading into the 2020 election, Pennsylvania voters should be taking a hard look at the candidates’ position on the voting question and decide for themselves if Sanders’ proposal goes “too far” for them.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is serving life in prison for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Should this former Black Panther, convicted of one of the most publicized and vicious police murders in law enforcement history, be allowed to vote and exercise one of the most cherished privileges that American citizens possess?

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com