The Sentencing Project: Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the US

[Wilms]

FELONY DISENFRANCHISEMENT LAWS IN THE UNITED STATES

Overview

Since the founding of the country, most states in the U.S. have enacted laws disenfranchising convicted felons and ex-felons. In the last 30 years, due to the dramatic expansion of the criminal justice system, these laws have significantly affected the political voice of many American communities. The momentum toward reform of these policies has been based on a reconsideration of their wisdom in meeting legitimate correctional objectives and the interests of full democratic participation.


State Disenfranchisement Laws

• 48 states and the District of Columbia prohibit inmates from voting while incarcerated for a felony offense.

• Only two states - Maine and Vermont - permit inmates to vote.

• 36 states prohibit felons from voting while they are on parole and 31 of these states exclude felony probationers as well.

• Three states deny the right to vote to all ex-offenders who have completed their sentences. Nine others disenfranchise certain categories of ex-offenders and/or permit application for restoration of rights for specified offenses after a waiting period (e.g., five years in Delaware and Wyoming, three years in Maryland, and two years in Nebraska).

• Each state has developed its own process of restoring voting rights to ex-offenders but most of these restoration processes are so cumbersome that few ex-offenders are able to take advantage of them.


Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement

• An estimated 5.3 million Americans, or one in forty-one adults, have currently or permanently lost their voting rights as a result of a felony conviction.

• 1.4 million African American men, or 13% of black men, are disenfranchised, a rate seven times the national average.

• An estimated 676,730 women are currently ineligible to vote as a result of a felony conviction.

• More than 2 million1 white Americans (Hispanic and non-Hispanic)2 are disenfranchised.

• In six states that deny the vote to ex-offenders, one in four black men is permanently disenfranchised.

• Given current rates of incarceration, three in ten of the next generation of black men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states that disenfranchise ex-offenders, as many as 40% of black men may permanently lose their right to vote.

• 2.1 million disenfranchised persons are ex-offenders who have completed their sentences. The state of Florida had an estimated 960,000 ex-felons who were unable to vote in the 2004 presidential election. 1 This estimate is based on the proportion of whites convicted of felony offenses for the period 1988-1996. 2 Bureau of Justice Statistics’ reports on felony sentences in state courts do not provide separate conviction data for Hispanics.

snip/more

.pdf
http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1046.pdf

http://www.sentencingproject.org/pubs_05.cfm

[Kurovski]

1. This one really steams my sprouts.

If you paid a debt, you paid a debt.

Time served is just that.

Let them all vote in every state afterwords, stop the harrasment, and end this election-fraudster freebee now.

Say, Skilling and Lay won't be voting for a while, will they? :evilgrin:

[serryjw]

2. I posted this last week

EVEN the ones that CAN NOW vote are not told that they can!

[OnTheOtherHand]

3. good article, good work

It's almost hard to wrap one's head around. That's an awful lot of Floridians legally denied the right to vote.