Felon Disenfranchisement

Current Felon Disenfranchisement Laws

Felon disfranchisement is a recent concern in the area of race and the criminal justice system. These state-level laws prevent people with felony convictions from voting in a particular state. The time period for which voting is banned may be the period of incarceration, the time on parole, or, in some states, the duration of an offender's life. This is a critical concern in ethnic studies because the individuals being affected by these laws are primarily minorities. The laws are of particular concern for African Americans, because national data demonstrate a disproportionate number of African Americans in prison: An estimated 13% of African American men are unable to vote as a result of a felony conviction. However, these policies also impact Hispanic voters and other minorities. Many of these offenders and former offenders have been incarcerated under drug laws in the United States.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, the United States is the only democracy where citizens are banned from voting even after their sentence has been served. Currently, an estimated 5.3 million people in the United States cannot vote as a result of a felony conviction; this statistic includes individuals who are banned from voting because they are currently incarcerated for a felony conviction, individuals banned because they are currently on parole for a felony conviction, and individuals who are banned because they currently reside in a state whose felon disenfranchisement laws ban felons for the duration of their lives.

The Sentencing Project provides the most recent statistical information concerning felon disenfranchisement laws in the United States. Some of the most interesting findings relevant to the study of race and crime from the Sentencing Project include that 48 states and the District of Columbia prohibit inmates from voting while incarcerated for a felony offense; only Maine and Vermont allow inmates to vote. Thirty-five states prohibit felons from voting while they are on parole, and 30 of these states exclude felony probationers. Two states, Kentucky and Virginia, currently deny the right to vote to all ex-offenders who have completed their sentences; a third state, Florida, has now modified its policies to extend voting rights to some offenders who have completed their sentences; however, given the difficulty offenders face in order to have their rights restored in Florida, many individuals still consider this to be a third state of permanent disenfranchisement. Nine states disenfranchise certain categories of ex-offenders and/or permit application for restoration of rights for specified offenses after a waiting period (e.g., 5 years in Delaware and Wyoming and 2 years in Nebraska). Each state in the United States has developed its own processes of restoring voting rights, but, according to the Sentencing Project, most policies offering restoration of voting rights are extremely cumbersome and discourage many individuals from taking advantage of them. Table 1 shows disenfranchisement policies by state.

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