![]() In November 2018, Florida voters passed Amendment 4 to the Constitution of Florida by ballot initiative, which allowed most people who have completed their sentences to vote (with the exception of people convicted of sex offenses and murder). Other states have revised their waiting periods and streamlined the process for regaining civil rights. Since January 1, 2020, laws or policy changes took effect in 8 states, expanding voting rights to some nonincarcerated people: California (parole), Connecticut (parole), Iowa (post-sentence, with exception for homicide), New Jersey (probation and parole), New York (parole), North Carolina (probation and parole), Virginia (post-prison), and Washington (post-prison). ![]() ![]() Census data on voting eligible populations 1 and recent changes in state-level disenfranchisement laws and policies, including those reported in Felony Disenfranchisement: A Primer (Chung 2019) and Expanding the Vote (Porter 2010 McLeod 2018). To compile estimates of disenfranchised populations, we take into account new U.S. ![]() Approximately 1 million women are disenfranchised, comprising over one-fifth of the total disenfranchised population.Although data on ethnicity in correctional populations are unevenly reported and undercounted in some states, a conservative estimate is that at least 506,000 Latinx Americans or 1.7 percent of the voting eligible population are disenfranchised.More than one in 10 African American adults is disenfranchised in eight states – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia.Among the adult African American population, 5.3 percent is disenfranchised compared to 1.5 percent of the adult non-African American population. One in 19 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate 3.5 times that of non-African Americans.An estimated 934,500 Floridians who have completed their sentences remain disenfranchised, despite a 2018 ballot referendum that promised to restore their voting rights. Florida remains the nation’s disenfranchisement leader in absolute numbers, with over 1.1 million people currently banned from voting, often because they cannot afford to pay court-ordered monetary sanctions.In three states – Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee – more than 8 percent of the adult population, one of every 13 adults, is disenfranchised.Three out of four people disenfranchised are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on probation or parole.voting eligible population – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction. One out of 50 adult citizens – 2 percent of the total U.S.Previous research finds there were an estimated 1.2 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.3 million in 1996, 4.7 million in 2000, 5.4 million in 2004, 5.9 million in 2010, 6.1 million in 2016, and 5.2 million in 2020. An estimated 4.6 million people are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, a figure that has declined by 24 percent since 2016, as more states enacted policies to curtail this practice and state prison populations declined modestly.Although these and other estimates must be interpreted with caution, the numbers presented here represent our best assessment of the state of felony disenfranchisement as of the November 2022 election. As in 2020, we present national and state estimates of the number and percentage of people disenfranchised due to felony convictions, as well as the number and percentage of the Black and Latinx populations impacted. This 2022 report updates and expands upon 20 years of work chronicling the scope and distribution of felony disenfranchisement in the United States (see Uggen, Larson, Shannon, and Pulido-Nava 2020 Uggen, Larson, and Shannon 2016 Uggen, Shannon, and Manza 2012 Manza and Uggen 2006 Uggen and Manza 2002). In this election year, as the United States confronts questions about the stability of its democracy and the fairness of its elections, particularly within marginalized communities, the impact of voting bans on people with felony convictions should be front and center in the debate. In 2022, an estimated 4.6 million Americans, representing 2 percent of the voting-age population, will be ineligible to vote due to these laws or policies, many of which date back to the post-Reconstruction era. Laws in 48 states ban people with felony convictions from voting.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |