From The Sentencing Project
Executive Summary
Incarcerated citizens in Maine and Vermont still face significant barriers to casting a ballot. With an estimated one million eligible voters currently completing a felony-level sentence in prisons or jails across the U.S., the findings underscore the urgent need to remove systemic barriers to voting in correctional facilities.
Voting is one prosocial way to maintain a connection to the community, which is particularly important during incarceration, and it helps to build a positive identity as a community member.3 The right to vote is also an internationally recognized human right.4 While voting is a cornerstone of American democracy, an estimated 1 million citizens cannot vote because they are completing a felony-level sentence in prison.5 Given racial disparities in incarceration, people of color are disproportionately blocked from the ballot box due to voting bans for people with a felony-level conviction.6
This first-of-its-kind research is a culmination of a multi-year inquiry in Maine and Vermont about how voting rights are implemented in prisons. The Sentencing Project sought to answer two interrelated questions:
1.What are incarcerated residents’ views about voting and the voting process?
2.What are the facilitators and barriers to implementing voting rights within the Department of Corrections, according to Department of Corrections staff and other stakeholders?7 Continue reading >>>
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