Felony Disenfranchisement Prevents Four Million Americans From Voting

Felony disenfranchisement laws are wrong and were invented to suppress the black vote. These laws tip the balance of partisan power in places like Georgia, Florida and Arizona. They do, however, increase the relative voting power of women relative to men. And, they may even prevent Presidential candidate Donald Trump from voting in this year's election, since he is a convicted felon.

Laws in 48 U.S. states ban people with felony convictions from voting. In 2024, an estimated 4 million Americans, representing 1.7% of the voting-age population, will be ineligible to vote due to these laws, many of which date back to the post-Reconstruction era. . . . 

This report updates and expands upon a quarter century of work chronicling the scope and distribution of felony disenfranchisement in the United States. As in 2022, 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 Latino populations impacted. This year, we also present state-level data on the degree of disenfranchisement among men and women. Although these and other estimates must be interpreted with caution, the numbers presented here represent our best assessment of the state of U.S. felony disenfranchisement as of the November 2024 election.

Among the report’s key findings: 

• An estimated 4 million people are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, a figure that has declined by 31% since 2016, as more states enacted policies to curtail this practice and state prison, probation, and parole populations declined. 
• Previous research finds there were an estimated 1.2 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.3 million in 1996, 4.6 million in 2000, 5.1 million in 2004, 5.7 million in 2010, 5.9 million in 2016, 4.9 million in 2020, and 4.4 million in 2022. 
• One out of 59 adult citizens – 1.7% of the total U.S. voting eligible population – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction. 
• Seven out of 10 people disenfranchised are living in their communities, having fully completed their sentences or remaining supervised while on felony probation or parole. 
• In two states – Florida and Tennessee – more than 6% of the adult population, one of every 17 adults, is disenfranchised. 
• Florida remains the nation’s disenfranchisement leader in absolute numbers, with over 961,000 people currently banned from voting, often because they cannot afford to pay court-ordered monetary sanctions. An estimated 730,000 Floridians who have completed their sentences remain disenfranchised, despite a 2018 ballot referendum that promised to restore their voting rights. 
• One in 22 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than triple that of non-African Americans. Among the adult African American population, 4.5% is disenfranchised compared to 1.3% of the adult non-African American population. In 15 states, 5% or more of the African American adult population is banned from voting due to a felony conviction. 
• More than one in 10 African American adults is disenfranchised in five states – Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Tennessee. 
• Although data on ethnicity in correctional populations are unevenly reported and undercounted in some states, a conservative estimate is that at least 495,000 Latino Americans or 1.5% of the voting eligible population are disenfranchised. 
• Based on available correctional data that records an individual’s sex, approximately 764,000 women are disenfranchised, comprising about 0.6% of the female voting eligible population and approximately one-fifth of the total disenfranchised population. We estimate that approximately 3.2 million men or 2.7% of the male voting eligible population is disenfranchised, consistent with the overrepresentation of men in the criminal legal system.

From the Sentencing Project (via the Sentencing Law and Policy blog).