The right to vote is enshrined in our Constitution and is a pillar of our democratic society. Our history is marked by successful struggles to expand the franchise to include those previously barred from the electorate because of race, class, or gender. There remains, however, a significant barrier to this progress.
Today, more than five million American citizens are denied the right to vote because of criminal convictions. Nearly four million of this population–a disproportionate number of which comprises of underrepresented people of color–is out of prison, working, paying taxes, and raising families, though they remain stripped of their constitutional right to vote.
Advocates maintain that voting is essential to the process of reintegration. Emerging from a patchwork of state laws that vary widely, the Democracy Restoration Act of 2009 establishes a federal standard that restores voting rights in federal elections to the millions of Americans who are living in the community, but continue to be denied the ability to fully participate in civic life.
Compared to other countries, the U.S. is an outlier in its approach to restricting the voting rights of the convicted. In 2005, the New York Times found that “[t]he United States has the worst record in the world when it comes to stripping convicted felons of the right to vote.” While there is no single prevailing approach to criminal disfranchisement in other nations, there is a clear trend—one from which the United States has departed.
The U.S. has far more restrictive felon disenfranchisement laws than the vast majority of nations, particularly other democracies. International human rights law has long recognized the fundamental right to vote as an essential prerequisite for full and equal enjoyment of rights. Felony disenfranchisement laws are inconsistent with the general principles of human rights law, as codified in international obligations. The United States is bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
The UDHR acknowledges the vital role that free, fair, and transparent elections have in guaranteeing the essential right of civic engagement. Article 21(1) of the UDHR states, “[e]veryone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.” Article 25(b) of the ICCPR declares that every citizen has the right and the opportunity to “vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ball, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors. . . .”
With their disparate impact on minorities, criminal disfranchisement laws offend the human rights treaties by which the United States has agreed to abide. CERD prohibits “racial discrimination,” Article 5 of which explicitly protects the “political rights, in particular the right to participate in elections” of “everyone without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin.” Disfranchising individuals with felony convictions at far greater rates than other nations puts the United States at a disadvantage by failing to meet world human rights standards and discouraging the rehabilitation and reintegration of former prisoners back into society.
In 2006, the Human Rights Committee, the administrative body of the ICCPR, expressed concern over the United States’ material non-compliance with the ICCPR, and urged the U.S. to take immediate corrective action to fully implement the ICCPR. In passing enabling legislation to enforce provisions of these treaties and enact the Democracy Restoration Act, Congress could fully implement the United States’ obligations under ICCPR and CERD, restoring voting rights to millions of American citizens in federal elections.
Lauren Forbes is a legal intern with Project Vote