An inmate at the Cook County Jail wears an “I Voted” sticker after casting a ballot in the Illinois primary election in March 2020. Some states recently have passed laws to restore voting rights for people who have felony convictions, while others have moved to implement or strengthen restrictions. (Scott Olson | Getty Images)
As political campaigns scramble for every vote, the Plains states of Nebraska and Oklahoma have passed laws that aim to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions. Thousands of voters could be brought back into the political process, potentially influencing election outcomes in some communities.
Other states have also taken steps to expand or restrict ballot access for residents who have been convicted of felonies. The laws might affect just a few thousand voters in each state, but in close races those numbers could make a difference.
Nebraska’s new law, passed in the spring, erases a two-year waiting period and restores the right to vote to an estimated 7,000 Nebraskans who completed their sentences since 2022, according to The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit criminal justice research and advocacy group.
On July 17 — two days before the law was set to take effect — Republican Attorney General Mike Hilgers issued an opinion arguing the new law violated the Nebraska Constitution. Hilgers also argued that the underlying 2005 law, which automatically restored voting rights two years after the completion of a felony sentence, was unconstitutional.
As a result, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen instructed county election offices to stop registering people with felony convictions.
But last week, the Nebraska Supreme Court ordered Evnen to implement the law “immediately.”
Now, newly enfranchised Nebraskans have until Friday’s in-person voter registration deadline to sign up. Advocacy groups have urged Evnen to extend the deadline. The Secretary of State’s Office told Stateline that the state’s final registration deadline will not be extended.
Oklahoma already restores voting rights after residents have completed their sentences — including prison time, parole and probation. But earlier this year, lawmakers passed a law guaranteeing the right to vote immediately upon receiving a pardon or a commutation.
The new law, set to take effect in January, clarifies the voting eligibility for people who’d previously been convicted of a felony but had their sentences commuted. Hundreds of Oklahomans were released from prison in 2019 in one of the nation’s largest mass commutations, after state voters approved a ballot measure changing many drug-related felony charges to misdemeanors.
Last year, Minnesota and New Mexico both lifted voting restrictions for people with felony convictions, restoring their voting rights upon completion of their incarceration. Previously, those residents had to complete their entire sentence, including parole or probation, before they could regain their eligibility to vote.
Now, less than two weeks before Election Day, tens of thousands of previously disenfranchised voters will be able to cast ballots — some for the first time.
Nationally, though, about 4 million U.S. citizens are unable to vote this year because they were once convicted of a felony, according to The Sentencing Project.
Most of those people — around 7 in 10 — are living in their communities; they have either finished their sentences or are still under supervision while on probation or parole. The others remain in prison.
New limits on voting rights
Several states over the past year have moved to further restrict voting rights for people with felony convictions.
In April 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a state law that prohibits individuals on probation, parole or other forms of supervision from voting, overturning a lower court’s 2022 decision that had struck down the statute.
Tennessee’s Supreme Court in July 2023 issued a ruling requiring felons to get their voting rights restored by a judge or provide evidence that they were pardoned.
And in Virginia, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin in March 2023 rolled back the near-automatic restoration of voting rights — a process that had been used by both Democratic and Republican governors in the state for more than a decade. As a result, Virginians who have felony convictions are now required to apply for the restoration of their voting rights.
Their right to access the ballot box is theoretically constitutionally protected. In reality, it is hard to cast a ballot and it’s hard to enforce that constitutional right.
– Blair Bowie, director of the Restore Your Vote project at the Campaign Legal Center
Laws disenfranchising people with felony convictions date back to before the United States was established, according to voting rights experts. And most state disenfranchisement laws were adopted after the Civil War.
“Felony disenfranchisement really proliferated in the United States after the Civil War in the Southern states as a way to disenfranchise Black men who had won their right to vote,” said Blair Bowie, a lawyer and director of the Restore Your Vote project at the Campaign Legal Center, a legal advocacy organization. The center operates a hotline and has an online tool that helps people check whether they are eligible to vote in their state.
Today, some states restore the right to vote upon release from prison, while others require people to wait until they receive a pardon, complete their probation or parole, pay all fines, fees and restitution, adhere to a waiting period or meet some combination of these requirements. Some states also restrict people with felony convictions from voting based on the type of crime that was committed.
No one is automatically registered to vote; people must register themselves.
In two states — Maine and Vermont — and the District of Columbia, felons never lose their right to vote, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Voting access in correctional facilities
In many states, incarcerated U.S. citizens retain their right to vote, including in situations where they’re being held before trial or serving time in local jails.
Earlier this year, for example, Virginia passed a law allowing registered voters who are confined while awaiting trial or who have been convicted of a misdemeanor to vote by absentee ballot.
For those who are incarcerated, though, voting barriers may include difficulties with registering or requesting an absentee ballot, affording postage, and even having access to a pen to fill out the ballot, said Bowie, of the Campaign Legal Center.
“Their right to access the ballot box is theoretically constitutionally protected,” Bowie said. “In reality, it is hard to cast a ballot and it’s hard to enforce that constitutional right.”
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