There is a sad truth in America – millions of hard-working and tax-paying citizens are denied one of the most fundamental rights – the right to vote. Felony disenfranchisement laws affect a total of 5.3 million Americans, four million of whom are out of prison and currently living and working in their communities. Aiming to shed light on this terrible injustice, the American Bar Association, ACLU, Brennan Center for Justice, Drug Policy Alliance, and Sentencing Project recently held a Congressional briefing to discuss the Democracy Restoration Act (S.1516/H.R.3335). The groups voiced their concerns with felony disenfranchisement and their reasons for supporting the Democracy Restoration Act.
Currently, felony disenfranchisement is produced by a patchwork of differing state laws; from the most lenient in Maine and Vermont (allowing everyone, including current inmates, to vote) to the most stringent in Kentucky and Virginia (denying the right to vote to all ex-offenders who have completed their sentences). The other states fall somewhere in between those extremes, but the disparities do not end there. Confusion surrounding varied state laws, coupled with poorly trained election officials, can lead to de facto disenfranchisement and results in eligible voters being denied the right to register to vote or cast their ballots. This confusion may lie in the varied treatments of citizens on probation versus parole, the qualifications of a citizen who has committed a misdemeanor, and the procedures for re-registering once a citizen has been released from prison.
Felony disenfranchisement has its roots in something much deeper – they grew out of the Jim Crow laws as a way to keep African Americans from voting. Today still, these laws have a disproportionate effect on minority citizens. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 13 percent of all African American men nationwide have lost the right to vote – a rate seven times the national average. It is estimated that three in 10 of the next generation of African American men can expect to be disenfranchised at some point in their lives. Other minority groups who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, such as Latinos, also end up unequally disenfranchised.
The effect of these laws reaches much deeper than the ballot box. By denying citizens the right to vote, they are being taken out of the political process and made to feel like a lesser member of their community. They are expected to fulfill all of the responsibilities of citizenship without reaping all of the rights conferred by it. Studies have shown that disenfranchisement has damning effects on recidivism – while 27 percent of non-voters were rearrested, only 12 percent of voters were. Laws with an effect so counterproductive to a strong democracy should not be considered good policy and it is the responsibility of our legislators to ensure that the full rights of the Constitution are conferred upon each eligible citizen.
Members of Congress have taken the first step to reversing this troubling tide. Senator Russell Feingold and Representative John Conyers have introduced the Democracy Restoration Act (S.1516/H.R.3335) to combat felony disenfranchisement in federal elections. The Act aims to restore voting rights (in federal elections) to those Americans who have been released from prison; ensure that probationers are never disenfranchised; and to notify citizens of their right to vote when they leave prison, are sentenced to probation, or convicted of a misdemeanor. This uniform standard would strengthen the democracy by ensuring that all citizens have an equal opportunity to participate and contribute, while aiding law enforcement through the encouragement of reintegration and (hopefully) the decline of recidivism.
The bills have been referred to their respective committees for consideration, but neither committee has yet scheduled a hearing on the bills. During the recent Senate staff briefing on the bill, everyone seemed receptive of the measure, but it was unclear how that support will turn into actual action. Senator Feingold’s representative at the meeting talked about the importance of the bill and discussed the objections he most commonly hears, but gave no indication of how hopeful he was for the bill’s future in the Senate. It is important to note, however, that this does not mean that the bill is dead. Both the Senate and the House have been completely engrossed in the health care debate and that issue has eclipsed all others on the Hill, no matter how important they are. Project Vote is hopeful for the Democracy Restoration Act’s future and will continue to push Congress on important issues like these.