Why Is No One Fighting for the Voting Rights of Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners?

Continued from previous page

The ability to reapply for voting rights can be as simple as submitting an application to the board of elections, but some states make it  much more tedious. In Alabama, you can never regain your enfranchisement for certain offenses. In Mississippi, one might lose the right to vote for felony for writing a bad check. Said person would then have to get the state legislature to pass a specific bill allowing them to vote. That's probably too much for someone who likely has a lot of difficulty just finding a job, which is why  only 0.28% of ex-felons in Mississippi (pdf) had their voting rights restored in the last decade.

So why hasn't there been more outrage over prisoner and ex-prisoner voting? The reality is that most states are simply uncompetitive in most elections. It wouldn't make a lot of difference.

Florida and Virginia, however, are very competitive* and have very strict felon laws whereby even ex-felons can have difficulty voting. Neither of these states have sterling records when it comes to civil rights overall. In Florida, all ex-felons must wait at least five years before asking an executive board for the right to vote. Some more violent offenders must wait seven years thanks to a rule signed by its Republican governor. Virginia's Republican governor has recently loosened its rules, but all ex-felons must still pay outstanding fines to the courts and some must still wait five years before re-applying.

Over 20% of the black populations in each state are disenfranchised because of felon and ex-felon voting restrictions. That includes about half a million blacks in Florida and a quarter of a million blacks in Virginia. Over 15% of the black populations in each state are disenfranchised because of ex-felon voting restrictions. More than half of the voters made ineligible by Virginia's felon and ex-felon restrictions are black.

In terms of electoral results, President Obama would have added 2.6pt to his 0.9pt Florida margin had felons and ex-felons been allowed to vote. Even if we just count ex-felons, it would have been 2.2pt. Al Gore would have easily won the state given this data. Obama would have tacked on another 1.6pt to his 3.9pt win in the swing state of Virginia if it had the felon voting rules of Maine or Vermont. It would still have been an additional 1.2pt including just ex-felons – as allowed in the vast majority of states.

Thus, laws prohibiting felons and ex-felons have a major impact on elections and may determine a winner in the near future. I don't expect people to take up the banner of felon and ex-felon voting rights. They're not are as sexy as a topic as voter identification for obvious reasons. But if you're looking for voting restrictions that afflict minorities in the south and can have major electoral implications, then felon and ex-felon voting laws have a far greater impact than voter identification laws.

*The competitive state of Iowa has recently switched its rules to tighten ex-felon voting thanks to its Republican governor. Up-to-date data, however, is unavailable on how many people this would affect. John Kerry likely  would have won Iowa (pdf) had felons been allowed to vote.