Voting Rights Restoration 2020
A Story of Progress and Resistance
Written by Cecily Hines and Miles Rapoport
As Election Day approaches, one key issue, in Florida but also nationwide, is whether and to what degree citizens who have felony convictions on their records will have their rights restored and be able to vote. The picture is decidedly mixed. There has been real progress in many states, and stubborn resistance in others.
According to a recent study by the Sentencing Project entitled “Locked Out 2020”, an estimated 5.2 million people cannot vote due to felony convictions. This represents 2.3% of the voting-age population, and — dramatically — over 6.2% of African Americans will be unable to participate in this critical year. This contrasts with 1.7% of the non-African American population and 2% in the Latinx communities. Nor surprisingly, 80% of those disenfranchised are men. The rate of disenfranchisement varies by state, given the array and complexity of restrictions that exist across the country. As an example, in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, more than 8 percent of adults are disenfranchised.
These statistics are daunting and discriminatory. And yet, as The Sentencing Project also documents, a significant amount of progress has been made in states around the country. Nationally, the number of disenfranchised persons has decreased significantly since 2016, by an estimated one million. This is the result of a number of states enacting laws easing the process in the past four years, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last 10 years.
Florida is at the epicenter of the debate, and it illustrates both the progress and the resistance. Amendment 4, the well-known ballot initiative in Florida in 2018, succeeded with the voters by a two to one margin, and with strong bipartisan support. The powerful and stated intent was to restore voting rights to those with felony convictions who had completed their sentences. The passage of Amendment 4 was to enable close to 1.5 million people to register to vote.
But what did ‘completing their sentences’ mean? Almost immediately, the GOP-controlled Florida legislature, with support of Governor Ron De Santis, enacted a law requiring all of these re-enfranchised individuals to be current in payment of all fines and fees before they could vote. This cut the number of people whose rights could be restored by over half. In fact, according to ProPublica, Florida officials do not know how many of the re-enfranchised owe fines, and even for the potential voter, it can be almost impossible to figure out.
Disappointingly, this modern-day poll tax was upheld after a fierce fight in the courts, meaning that Florida remains today the nation’s leader in disenfranchisement, with an estimated 1.1 people banned from participation. We won’t know how many people will actually vote as a result, but some estimates put the number of newly registered ex-felons as low as 40,000, less than 8% of those that had been expected when Amendment 4 passed.
While much attention has been focused on Florida, there has been real progress in other states to eliminate or reduce restrictions on those with felony convictions. There are no longer any states that permanently disenfranchise people with felony convictions, a practice that was commonplace years ago. Only 11 states remain that deny the right to vote to those that have completed their prison, parole, and probation sentences. A number of states still restrict those on parole or probation from voting, but that number is declining. Those states enacting recently the most sweeping laws to end disenfranchisement of those no longer incarcerated are Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, New Jersey, and New York. In addition, numerous other states have taken action in the past several years to lessen the burdens of regaining eligibility, including Maryland and Delaware. And Washington, DC has completely decoupled voting rights from one’s criminal justice status, joining Vermont and Maine who have had that policy for many years. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), in the years between 1996 and 2008, twenty-eight states passed new laws on felon voting rights, with seven repealing lifetime disenfranchisement laws, and 21 making it easier for ex-offenders to get information and have voting rights restored.
When the smoke of the 2020 elections clears, correcting this large-scale disenfranchisement will be an ongoing agenda item for the future.
It should be noted that the data on felony disenfranchisement is complex due to the many differences in state laws. For example, some with felony convictions are disenfranchised for only two years after release from supervision, others are disenfranchised only if they are convicted of multiple felonies, and still, others are disenfranchised only if they were convicted of a violent crime. That said, most states have been moving more towards the restoration of voting rights or easing restrictions in some manner.
One new area has begun to get more attention, and that is the question of people who are in jails (not prisons). Most people in local jails are either 1) awaiting trial, which does not disqualify someone from voting, or 2) convicted of a misdemeanor, which also does not disqualify one from voting in most states. (Only 6 states prohibit those with misdemeanor convictions from voting: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and South Carolina.). These people have the legal right to vote, but face so many barriers to voting that they often do not participate in this important democratic process. These barriers include widespread misinformation about who is eligible to vote, lack of opportunity to register, and lack of easy access to the actual ballot. On top of that, there is the concern for ballot secrecy when, in most jails, non-privileged outgoing mail can be read by the jail staff. According to a publication in the Prison Policy Initiative, this year approximately 746,000 individuals are in local jails at any one time.
Again, some progress is being made. Illinois has recently passed legislation to enable those in jails who are not convicted to vote by mail, and California has made it possible for those in local jails to vote. Nevertheless, the barriers to voting are typically so pervasive that those in local jails are finding access to voting difficult.
In summary, much progress has been made over the past two decades in the restoration of voting rights across the country. It is likely that this progress will continue, as the country re-examines the criminal justice system as a whole. But 5.2 million people prohibited from voting is a really large number, one that can make a difference in close elections, especially in states with large populations of color. And when the stakes are high, efforts to suppress the vote strengthen, just as we have seen in Florida. When the smoke of the 2020 elections clears, correcting this large-scale disenfranchisement will be an ongoing agenda item for the future.
About the Authors
Miles Rapoport
Miles Rapoport, a longtime organizer, policy advocate, and elected official, brings to the Ash Center four decades of experience working to strengthen democracy and democratic institutions in the United States. Prior to his appointment to the Ash Center, Rapoport was most recently president of the independent grassroots organization Common Cause. For 13 years, he headed the public policy center Demos.
Rapoport previously served as Connecticut’s Secretary of the State and a state legislator for ten years in Hartford. He has written, spoken, and organized widely on issues of American democracy. He was a member of the Harvard class of 1971.
Cecily Hines
Cecily Hines currently serves as Senior Program Advisor to the Senior Practice Fellowship in American Democracy at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School. She is also a retired senior executive and general counsel with over 20 years of experience, primarily in the global medical device industry.
She was the first chief executive hired by Minneapolis Parks Foundation where she led the organization from an unknown entity to a highly respected organization, with an impressive board of directors and a reputation for leadership in its “next generation of parks” initiative.
Ms. Hines has served on numerous nonprofit and private boards, and as board chair of several of them.
She earned her J.D. degree from Duke University “with distinction”, her M.P.A. from New York University, and her B.A. from Smith College.
