STATSEY LEVE UPDATE

states deny voting rights to felony probationers, and thirty-four states disenfranchise parolees. As shown in the following table, Maine and Vermont remain the only states that allow persons in prison to vote. Other states have revised their waiting periods and streamlined the process for regaining civil rights.

For example, in 2007, Maryland repealed its lifetime voting ban that had applied to some individuals post-sentence, and in 2016 eliminated the voting ban for persons on probation or parole. Census data on voting age populations and recent changes in state-level disenfranchisement policies, including those reported in Expanding the Vote: State Felony Disenfranchisement Reform, 1997-2010 (Porter 2010). To compile estimates of disenfranchised populations, we take into account new U.S. In four states – Florida (21 percent), Kentucky (26 percent), Tennessee (21 percent), and Virginia (22 percent) – more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised. African American disenfranchisement rates also vary significantly by state.Over 7.4 percent of the adult African American population is disenfranchised compared to 1.8 percent of the non-African American population. One in 13 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate more than four times greater than that of non-African Americans.The state of Florida alone accounts for more than a quarter (27 percent) of the disenfranchised population nationally, and its nearly 1.5 million individuals disenfranchised post-sentence account for nearly half (48 percent) of the national total.In six states – Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia – more than 7 percent of the adult population is disenfranchised. Rates of disenfranchisement vary dramatically by state due to broad variations in voting prohibitions.Individuals who have completed their sentences in the twelve states that disenfranchise people post-sentence make up over 50 percent of the entire disenfranchised population, totaling almost 3.1 million people.voting age population – 1 of every 40 adults – is disenfranchised due to a current or previous felony conviction. Approximately 2.5 percent of the total U.S.There were an estimated 1.17 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.34 million in 1996, and 5.85 million in 2010. As of 2016, an estimated 6.1 million people are disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, a figure that has escalated dramatically in recent decades as the population under criminal justice supervision has increased.The numbers presented here represent our best assessment of the state of felony disenfranchisement as of the November 2016 election.

STATSEY LEVE UPDATE

This report is intended to update and expand our previous work on the scope and distribution of felony disenfranchisement in the United States (see Uggen, Shannon, and Manza 2012 Uggen and Manza 2002 Manza and Uggen 2006). In this election year, the question of voting restrictions is once again receiving great public attention.

Disenfranchisement and Restoration of Civil Rights.

An estimated 6.1 million Americans are forbidden to vote because of “felony disenfranchisement,” or laws restricting voting rights for those convicted of felony-level crimes. The United States remains one of the world’s strictest nations when it comes to denying the right to vote to citizens convicted of crimes.

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