Veterans are disproportionately represented on death row, and this election, death is on the ballot in three of our union’s states. In advance of Veterans Day, citizens can show support for veterans with their votes.

Any number of good reasons justify abolishing the death penalty in the United States. From 2007-2012, the United States found itself in the company of China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, among the countries with the most executions, which hardly puts us in enlightened company. The death penalty is arbitrarily imposed, disproportionately targets minority offenders and almost exclusively targets poor offenders. Life in prison is significantly less expensive for taxpayers than is a death penalty regime. The risk of executing the innocent is unjustifiable, especially in light of the 156 death row exonerations to date and strong evidence that we have most likely already executed innocent people.

As Veterans Day grows ever closer, it’s important to highlight another reason to abolish the death penalty that voters ought to consider. Our combat-traumatized veterans are being sentenced to death when their crimes are almost certainly linked to their military service. Though the number is difficult to quantify exactly, a Death Penalty Information Center report issued last November tallied approximately 300 veterans on death row. In other words, nearly 10 percent of the people that our government seeks to execute are veterans of the armed forces, many of whom saw combat. To put it into perspective, veterans only make up just over 7 percent of the American population.

Veterans should by no means get a pass for heinous crimes. Life in prison without the chance of parole is a harrowing punishment in itself. But when many of these condemned veteran convicts were trained to kill by our own very own government and then went overseas to do exactly that at the request of the American people, it is a perverse irony that the government would then try to impose the ultimate punishment for crimes committed in the aftermath of such service.

One such example is veteran George Porter. In 2009, the United States Supreme Court granted habeas corpus relief for Porter, who challenged his sentence of death because his attorney failed to bring forth evidence of his combat record, which would have been mitigating evidence that may have spared him the death penalty.

The Supreme Court noted in its decision granting Porter relief, “Our Nation has a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in recognition of their service, especially for those who fought on the front lines as Porter did.” Voters with the chance to vote on death penalty initiatives should take heed of this nation’s long tradition of recognizing the service of veterans embroiled in the criminal justice system by not leaving the irrevocable decision to kill up to a handful of players in the judicial system.

California voters face competing ballot initiatives: A vote of yes on Proposition 62 is a vote in support of repealing the death penalty in California. On the other hand, a vote of yes on Proposition 66 is a vote in support of fast-tracking the death penalty, which would reduce judicial safeguards and legal protections that sometimes operate to prevent executing the innocent.

Nebraska’s bipartisan legislature overrode the governor’s veto last year to repeal the death penalty in their state. Billionaire Gov. Pete Ricketts did not appreciate the measure and he has contributed significant funds to a pro-death group lobbying to reinstate the death penalty in Nebraska. Nebraska voters can cast a repeal vote that will bring back the death penalty or a retain vote that will retain the legislature’s bipartisan abolishment of state-sponsored death.

In Oklahoma, pro-death lobbyists are attempting to enshrine capital punishment in the state’s constitution. Oklahoma voters can vote to support an amendment to the state constitution that would protect the government’s right to execute people in the same way that the constitution protects the people’s right to be free from government interference in their speech, free exercise of religion or other fundamental rights. A vote of no on the other hand, would oppose such a backward measure.

With a disproportionate number of veterans on death row throughout the United States, voters need to make it known that killing those who have served is no way to honor the veteran community as a whole, and doing away with legal safeguards for criminal defendants or convicts is no way to honor the sacrifices that veterans have made in defense of the United States Constitution.

By Matthew J. Hefti

Matthew J. Hefti is a four-time combat veteran with deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He is in his final year as a student at the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he works on a capital post-conviction defense team with the Wisconsin Innocence Project. He is also the author of the novel “A Hard and Heavy Thing.” -- Ed.