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without a vote

a voice

i am a ghost inhabiting a citizen’s space.
Joe Loya, disfranchised former prisoner

free the VOTE
UNLOCKING DEMOCRACY IN THE CELLS AND ON THE STREETS

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION GROUP • NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC.

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NAACP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund, Inc.
John Payton
President and Director-Counsel
National Headquarters
99 Hudson Street, Suite 1600
New York, NY 10013
212.965.2200
800.221.7822
Fax 212.226.7592
Ryan P. Haygood
Co-Director,
Political Participation Group
Jenigh Garrett
Assistant Counsel
Dale Ho
Assistant Counsel

Washington, DC Office
1444 Eye Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20105
202.682.1300
Fax 202.682.1312
Kristen Clarke
Co-Director,
Political Participation Group

For more information,
visit us at
www.naacpldf.org

LDF’s POLITICAL PARTICIPATION GROUP
The Political Participation Group’s mission is to use legal, legislative, public education,
and advocacy strategies to promote the full, equal, and active participation of African
Americans in America’s democracy.

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FREE THE VOTE
Unlocking Democracy in the Cells and on the Streets

The Next Phase of the Voting Rights Movement:
Freeing the Vote for People with Felony Convictions
Securing the right to vote for the disfranchised—persons who have lost their voting rights
as a result of a felony conviction—is widely recognized as the next phase of the voting
rights movement. Nationwide, more than 5.3 million Americans who have been convicted
of a felony are denied access to the one fundamental right that is the foundation of all
other rights. Only Maine and Vermont do not restrict voting on the basis of a felony
conviction, and allow inmates to vote from prison by absentee ballot.
Nearly 2 million, or 38%, of the disfranchised are African Americans. A staggering 13% of
all African-American men in this country—and in some states up to one-third of the entire
African-American male population—are denied the right to vote. Given current rates of
incarceration, an astonishing one in three of the next generation of Black men will be
disfranchised at some point during their lifetime.

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Felon disfranchisement laws are a modern version
of historic voting barriers like Black Codes,
Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and poll taxes.

Electoral Exclusion: The Past and the Present
The racial disparities caused by felon disfranchisement laws are not a coincidence. Many
felon disfranchisement laws were passed in the years following the Civil War for the
distinct purpose of discriminating against newly-freed African Americans. Indeed, many
state legislatures tailored their felon disfranchisement laws to require the loss of voting
rights only for those offenses thought to be committed most frequently by Blacks.
For example, guided by the belief that Blacks engaged in crime were more likely to commit
less serious property offenses than the more “robust” crimes committed by whites, the
1890 Mississippi constitutional convention required disfranchisement for such crimes as
theft or burglary, but not for robbery or murder. Through the convoluted reasoning of
this law, one would be disfranchised for stealing a chicken, but not for killing the chicken’s
owner.
Many other states, from New York to Alabama, have also historically utilized felon
disfranchisement laws to prevent Blacks and other racial minorities from voting.

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Modern Day Impact on Communities of Color
As intended, felon disfranchisement statutes have weakened the voting power of Black and
Latino communities. This is largely the result of the disproportionate enforcement of the
“war on drugs” in Black and Latino communities, which has drastically increased the class of
persons subject to disfranchisement. Today, with 2.3 million Americans incarcerated, more
than 1 million of whom are African Americans, the effects of our nation’s reliance on mass
incarceration in the “war on drugs” era is more profound than ever.
Nowhere are the effects of felon disfranchisement more prominent than in the Black
community, where more than 1.5 million Black males, or 13% of the adult Black
population, are disfranchised—a rate seven times the national average.
The impact on Black voting strength at the state level is devastating. In Alabama, for
example, one in three Black men have been disqualified from voting as a result of a felony
conviction. In Washington State, an incredible 24% of Black men, and 15% of the
entire Black population, are denied their voting rights. In New York, though Blacks and
Latinos collectively comprise only 30% of the State’s overall population, they represent an
astonishing 87% of those denied the right to vote because of a felony conviction.

Nearly 2 million, or 38%, of the
disfranchised are African Americans.
A staggering 13% of all African-American
men in this country are disfranchised.
In some states up to one-third of the
entire African-American male population
is denied the right to vote.

Culture of Political Nonparticipation
Felon disfranchisement laws discourage voters and future voters from exercising the learned
behavior of voting. In doing so, these laws create a culture of political nonparticipation
that discourages civic engagement and marginalizes the voices of community members
who remain engaged, but who are deprived of the collective power of the votes of
disfranchised relatives and neighbors.

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Voices of Entire Communities Weakened
Felon disfranchisement affects more than individual voters themselves—it diminishes
the voting strength of entire minority communities, which are too often already plagued
with concentrated poverty, substandard housing, limited access to healthcare services,
and failing public schools. As a result, people in these communities have even less of an
opportunity to effect much-needed positive change through the political process.

Prisoners of the Census
To make matters worse, the Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the
prisons in which they are housed, which are often rural communities, rather than in their
permanent, pre-incarceration communities, which are often in the inner-cities.
Because racial minorities make up a substantially disproportionate number of sentenced
prisoners, this practice artificially inflates population numbers in the overwhelmingly white
towns, villages and counties that house prisons, resulting in greater political influence
and increased economic resources to rural areas and a loss of resources to the inner-city
communities from which minority prisoners usually belong.
Moreover, the Census Bureau’s current method of counting prisoners violates the
basic principle of “one person, one vote.” For example, in the city of Anamosa, Iowa, a
councilman from a prison community was elected to office from a ward which, according to
the Census, had almost 1,400 residents — about the same as the other three wards in town.
But 1,300 of these “residents” were actually prisoners in the Anamosa State Penitentiary.
Once those prisoners were subtracted, the “ward” had fewer than 60 actual residents.

New Frontiers for the Expansion of Voting Rights

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Today, there are new frontiers for the expansion of voting rights, and old battles that remain unfinished.
Regrettably, more than a century after emancipation, and 45 years after the passage of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, increasing numbers of Blacks and Latinos nationwide are actually losing their
right to vote each day, rather than experiencing greater access to political participation.
Fortunately, new efforts to reform felon disfranchisement policies suggest that many lawmakers are
beginning to understand that felon disfranchisement is not only discriminatory in its application,
but also undermines the most fundamental aspect of American citizenship: the right to participate
in the political process.
LDF is the leading voice in engaging the public and challenging discriminatory felon
disfranchisement laws in state and federal courts across the nation, litigating cases in New York
(Hayden v. Paterson), Washington State (Farrakhan v. Gregoire) and Alabama (Gooden v. Worley and
Glasgow v. Allen). Through these efforts, we aim to erase these racially discriminatory laws from
the books.
But we need your help.

What Can You Do?
•	 Educate Yourself: Find out what the felon disfranchisement policy is in your
state, and what efforts are underway to change that policy.
•	 Educate Others: Tell others in your community about the discriminatory impact
of these laws. Let them know how imperative each and every vote is to effectuating
change in your community, and ultimately, in your city, state and country.
•	 Volunteer: If you live in a state where voting rights for people with felony
convictions can be restored, there may be local or community organizations that can
help guide them through the process. There may also be community organizations in
your area that advocate for changes to felon disfranchisement laws. Sign up to volunteer
for one of these organizations.
•	 Take Political Action: Contact your state and
federal representatives and let them know that you
believe these laws are anti-democratic, discriminatory,
and should be swept into the dustbin of history, along
with Jim Crow laws, literacy tests, and poll taxes.
Together, we can empower ourselves, enhance our
collective voting strength, and improve the conditions
of our communities, by freeing the vote for people with
felony convictions.

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Civil Rights Marchers
Alabama, 1965

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LDF Attorneys
at the Supreme Court, 2009