If we had informative likes, I would have thrown it down for just this.In Israel, for it's entire history. Ireland since rhe founding of rhe republic, Italy since it was put back together after Benito, with a note that as of 2015 felons can't run for office.
And all three of those have a history of romanticizing criminals and thugs. Mafia, Irgun, IRA, etc...
Problem is the context you are ignoring. In one part of the context, the US is less a modern nation-state and more of a Holy Roman Empire that actually Federalized. A federation of States whom are a federation of counties. Another part is that the US has a very 'DEMOCRACY FUCK YEAH!' attitude and our history has told us that simply having people being instated is basically corruption waiting to happen (hence why the US justice system can be quite a mess, most Americans don't trust installed people or those that aren't elected despite everything). The Senate (and many city/town/county/state level positions) became directly elected due to the fact that more often than not the Senate's (and many town/city/county/state positions) seats were bought by Trusts than actually representative of the people (this is also something I don't like but can see the reasons why the Progressives went with it).The US is not special, the US is just wrong. Just like everything else about it's justice system.
I am more than willing to have the entire system reformed with a scaling system (i.e. do a felony with a firearm, you loose your right to bare arms for a period fitting for the crime and have felonies not include things like illegal drug possession and use), but given US history I'm not allowing a blanket enfranchisement.