Felon disenfranchisement
Felon disenfranchisement refers to the legal restrictions that prevent individuals with felony convictions from voting and engaging in various civic activities after serving their sentences. In the United States, an estimated 4.4 million residents were disenfranchised in 2022 due to felony convictions, representing a decrease from previous years, influenced by recent state reforms. States possess the authority to impose these restrictions based on federal law, which can affect numerous rights, including voting, firearm possession, and access to certain jobs or public benefits. The laws surrounding disenfranchisement vary significantly across states; for example, only Vermont, Maine, and the District of Columbia allow incarcerated individuals to vote, while others have conditions tied to the completion of parole or probation.
The impact of felon disenfranchisement disproportionately affects people of color, who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. This inequity has fueled advocacy for reform from organizations like the Sentencing Project and the American Civil Liberties Union, particularly in light of heightened awareness around systemic racism. Notable reform efforts include Virginia's restoration of voting rights to over 200,000 individuals and Florida's 2018 constitutional amendment to automatically restore voting rights upon completion of sentences. As advocacy continues, additional states are exploring measures to further expand voting rights for those with felony convictions.
Felon disenfranchisement
SIGNIFICANCE: According to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, DC-bases advocacy group, in 2022, an estimated 4.4 million US residents were denied the right to vote as a result of having been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year in the United States. This represented a significant drop from the estimated 5.2 million people disenfranchised in 2020, partly due to a number of state reforms enacted in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Overview
Based on federal law, states have the ability to restrict the rights of individuals convicted of felonies. These restrictions may preclude these individuals' abilities to: vote; possess a firearm; serve on a federal jury; hold certain federal offices, jobs, or licenses; enlist in military service or receive certain military benefits; serve in a range of capacities relating to labor organizations; participate in or receive certain federal contracts; to participate in federal or designated state social service programs (such as Social Security, health, disability, public housing, and other benefits and services) based on the type of felony conviction; and be issued a passport if their conviction is for a federal or state drug offense in which a passport was used or if the offender crossed an international boundary in the commission of the crime.
Persons attempting to enter the United States may be denied entry if they have been convicted of, or admit to committing, any crimes recognized by federal or state law as involving moral turpitude. Undocumented immigrants who are convicted of felonies may be deported and are ordinarily disqualified from naturalization.
Felony convictions for certain sex offenses typically require offenders to submit to sex offender registration. Minimum national standards, as set forth in the Wetterling Act, require all registered sex offenders who move to another state to notify the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the new state of residence.
By 2022, only Vermont and Maine, plus the District of Columbia, allowed people in prison to vote. Twenty-one other states allowed people to vote as soon as they were released from prison; sixteen states allowed people to vote only after meeting certain conditions, such as the completion of parole or probation; and eleven states had restrictions beyond that, including in some cases permanent disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies.
Laws affecting people convicted of felonies have a disproportionate impact on people of color, who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. This disparity is a major driver of the push for reform in felon disenfranchisement from organizations such as the Sentencing Project and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, motivated in part by the Black Lives Matter movement and increased attention toward issues of systemic racism in the US, pressure increased on state governments to reform existing disenfranchisement policies. This pressure led to reforms in a number of states. For example, in mid-2016, Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia signed an executive order that restored voting rights to more than 200,000 people convicted of felonies who had completed their sentences, but the state’s supreme court overturned the governor's order, saying he needed to restore felon voting rights on an individual basis per the state's constitution. By April 2017, McAuliffe had restored voting rights to over 156,000 citizens and was pushing for an amendment to the state constitution. In 2018, following a statewide referendum, Florida passed a constitutional amendment that automatically restored voting rights to people convicted of felonies upon the completion of their prison sentence, parole, or probation.
Reform efforts continued into the 2020s. In 2021 alone, three states—Connecticut, New York, and Washington—restored voting rights to citizens on parole. Meanwhile, activists continued to advocate for further expansion of voting rights, and some states began considering constitutional amendments to codify these rights into law.
Bibliography
Behrens, Angela, Christopher Uggen, and Jeff Manza. “Ballot Manipulation and the ‘Menace of Negro Domination’: Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850–2002.” American Journal of Sociology 109 (2003): 559–605.
Chung, Jean. “Voting Rights in the Era of Mass Incarceration: A Primer.” The Sentencing Project, July 2021, www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/Voting-Rights-in-the-Era-of-Mass-Incarceration-A-Primer.pdf. Accessed 2 July 2024.
“Felon Voting Rights.” National Conference of State Legislatures, 28 June 2021, www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx. Accessed 2 July 2024.
Uggen, Christopher, Ryan Larsen, Sarah Shannon, and Robert Stewart. “Locked Out 2022: Estimates of People Denied Voting Rights.” The Sentencing Project, 25 Oct. 2022, www.sentencingproject.org/reports/locked-out-2022-estimates-of-people-denied-voting-rights/. Accessed 2 July 2024.
Uggen, Christopher, and Jeff Manza. Locking Up the Vote: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy. New York: Oxford UP, 2004.
Weeks, Daniel. "Should Felons Lose the Right to Vote?" The Atlantic, 7 Jan. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/should-felons-lose-the-right-to-vote/282846/. Accessed 2 July 2024.