The Sentencing Project reports that approximately 5.85 millions of American citizens cannot vote due to laws that strip felons from doing so.
State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 2010 issued by the Sentencing Project shows just how rampant disenfranchisement is in the United States. Key highlights pulled from the report reveal:
Approximately 2.5 percent of the total U.S. voting age population – 1 of every 40 adults – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction.
Ex-felons in the eleven states that disenfranchise people after they have completed their sentences make up about 45 percent of the entire disenfranchised population, totaling over 2.6 million people.
The number of people disenfranchised due to a felony conviction has escalated dramatically in recent decades as the population under criminal justice supervision has increased. There were an estimated 1.17 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.34 million in 1996, and over 5.85 million in 2010.
Rates of disenfranchisement vary dramatically by state due to broad variations in voting prohibitions. In six states – Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia – more than 7 percent of the adult population is disenfranchised.
1 of every 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than four times greater than non-African Americans. Nearly 7.7 percent of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 1.8 percent of the non-African American population.
African American disenfranchisement rates also vary significantly by state. In three states – Florida (23 percent), Kentucky (22 percent), and Virginia (20 percent) – more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised.
States differ in laws regarding who can vote and who cannot. Only Maine and Vermont allow an incarcerated person, someone on probation or parole, or a convicted felon to vote. State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement offers a summary of each state’s laws regarding voting rights. What may surprise some is that those who are locked up do not make up the majority of citizens who cannot cast a ballot. The report relates that the majority of those who cannot vote(75 percent) ,“…are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on probation or parole.”
The Sentencing Project concludes the report by saying that the majority of Americans approve of restoring voting rights for people on parole or probation, and for felons who have been released from incarceration after serving their time. If that happened, the report states, over four million Americans would be able to participate in one of the most sacred rites of democracy – casting their ballots for the candidate of their choice. And that just might scare some politicians.
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