This is why more than 4% of the Arizona electorate cannot vote on November 5

May Tiwamangkala follows politics closely from the presidential elections to the local elections.

But when the November 5 elections take place in less than three weeks, Tiwamangkala will not be allowed to vote. She is not allowed to vote because of previous felony convictions.

Tiwamangkala, now 35, lost her right to vote in her 20s after a drunk driving conviction. She served two years in Perryville State Prison following a second drunken driving conviction in 2017. But more than five years after serving her prison sentence in 2019, she still cannot vote. People in Arizona with two or more felonies are permanently banned from voting.

“I think it’s unfair,” Tiwamangkala said.

She is now advocating to restore voting rights to other disenfranchised voters. “It is important to make the formerly incarcerated community feel that we are part of the community and that I am valued as much as someone who can vote,” Tiwamangkala said. “Our lives and our struggles matter.”

Arizona, a key battleground in the 2024 elections, has some of the strictest voter felony restrictions of any state in the country, and the restrictions particularly affect people of color, according to a new report intended to draw attention to the millions of disenfranchised voters. in the US

“It highlights that there are residents whose voices will be missing from the November general election, and that is a stain on democracy in the United States,” said Nicole Porter, senior director of advocacy at The Sentencing Project, which published the Locked report . In 2024. The nonprofit organization opposes denying voting rights to people convicted of crimes.

There are approximately 4 million people in 48 states barred from voting because of felony convictions. According to the report, this number includes approximately 215,000 disenfranchised voters in Arizona.

“When you’re in this situation, it feels a bit like taxation without representation,” said Christopher Uggen, professor of sociology, law and public affairs at the University of Minnesota and one of the authors of the Locked Out 2024 report. “You are expected to contribute to your community and contribute to the tax rolls, but you are also not allowed to vote in local elections.”

Arizona’s 215,000 disenfranchised voters make up about 4.2% of the state’s electorate. By comparison, the 4 million people nationally who cannot vote because of prior felony convictions make up about 1.7% of the country’s electorate, Uggen said.

Arizona is one of 10 states with the strictest form of voter restrictions related to crimes in the country, Uggen said. These states permanently deny voting rights to people who have successfully completed their sentences.

In 2023, Arizona passed a law that automatically restores the voting rights of people convicted of a crime once their sentences have been served.

But people with two or more felony convictions are permanently barred from voting, even after they serve their sentences, Uggen said. The only way people who have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions can have their voting rights restored is if a judge grants them leniency, Uggen said.

Arizona “is currently at the stricter end of these restrictions,” Uggen said. “It’s a permanent disenfranchisement if you’ve committed two or more crimes, and that means a fairly large percentage of Arizona’s entire voting population is affected by these laws.”

Arizona’s 215,000 disenfranchised voters also include people convicted of crimes who are still on probation or parole, and people in prison with a crime, Uggen said.

Fifteen states deny voting rights to people with felony convictions who are in prison, on parole or on probation. Twenty-three states deny voting rights to people with felony convictions in prison.

On the other end of the spectrum, two states, Maine and Vermont, have no restrictions on felony voters, meaning even people with felony convictions who are serving a prison sentence can vote.

Arizona’s felony voter restrictions mainly affect Black people and Latinos, Uggen said.

There are about 24,000 black people in Arizona who cannot vote because of felony convictions, out of a population of about 231,000 black voters, Uggen said. That means about one in 10 potential black voters cannot vote, Uggen said. Arizona ranks fifth among states with the highest share of disenfranchised Black voters, Uggen said.

Arizona has the second-highest share of disenfranchised Latino voters, after Tennessee, Uggen said.

There are about 71,000 disenfranchised Latino voters in Arizona out of a total of 1.26 million Latino voters, Uggen said.

So about 5.7% of the Latino electorate cannot vote because of prior felony convictions, Uggen said.

Uggen said a number of states in recent years, including New Mexico, Minnesota, Connecticut and New York, have passed laws that make it easier for people convicted of crimes to restore their voting rights.

Partly as a result of these law changes, the total number of disenfranchised voters in the U.S. has fallen from 5.9 million in 2016 to the current 4 million, Uggen said.

“The movement seems intent on restoring the mood,” Uggen said.

On Oct. 16, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that people convicted of felonies and who have completed their sentences can vote, clearing the way to register to vote in the Nov. 5 election, NBC News reported.

In Arizona, the number of disenfranchised voters in Arizona this year is about the same as eight years ago: 215,000 in 2024 compared to 221,000 in 2016, Uggen said.

A ban on crimes is a ‘direct attack on our democracy’, says voter

“Voting is one of the most fundamental rights we have as Americans, and we believe that once someone has done their time and paid their debt to society, they deserve to be treated as full citizens again,” she said. Sena Mohammed, the executive director. from Our Voice Our Vote Arizona, a group dedicated to mobilizing voters.

“Denying the right to vote to formerly incarcerated people is not only unfair, it is a direct attack on our democracy,” Mohammed said, adding that she believes felony voting restrictions are part of efforts to limit voting rights to people of color.

Laws that deny voting rights to people convicted of crimes are rooted in policies adopted in Southern states after the Civil War to prevent black men from gaining political power, said Porter of The Sentencing Project.

The growth of mass incarceration beginning in the 1970s and the expansion of crimes considered felonies resulted in a jump in the number of disenfranchised voters in the U.S., which has disproportionately affected Black people and other people of color, Porter said.

Criminal convictions should not result in the loss of voting rights, Porter said.

“People who are convicted of a crime literally lose their liberty. They are put in jail, or they are put on community supervision and have to report to a probation officer. There is a range of penalties that they are subjected to,” Porter said. But “ they don’t lose their citizenship. And voting is a benefit of citizenship.“

Additionally, studies have shown that people who participate in voting are less likely to return to jail or come into contact with law enforcement, Porter said.

“If people are truly concerned about the safety of the community, then that should motivate them to encourage all people, regardless of criminal conviction status, to be true participants in democracy so that people are not marginalized from the community . They remain part of it. , which would strengthen community ties and reduce the likelihood of future contact with law enforcement,” Porter said.

There is also no evidence that restoring voting rights to people with prior felony convictions benefits one political party or the other, Porter said.

She pointed to a 2023 academic study in North Carolina that found people with criminal records registered almost equally as Democrats, Republicans and independents. The study also concluded that people whose voting rights were restored had low voter participation, but this could be improved through education.

She fought the Arizona wildfires as a prisoner, but still can’t vote

Tiwamangkala’s troubles with law enforcement occurred when she was going through a difficult time in her life in her twenties. Tiwamangkala, who identifies as LGBTQ+, had recently come out to her family and moved from the Chicago suburbs to Tempe, where she worked as a bartender.

“I would say I was depressed and really looking forward to a social life,” Tiwamangkala said.

During the two years Tiwamangkala was incarcerated in Perryville State Prison for her second drunk driving conviction, she served on a wildland fire crew made up of all incarcerated women.

When she wasn’t training, Tiwamangkala said she was fighting wildfires as part of the Perryville crew. She estimates she has been involved in fighting 20 wildfires, including the 2018 Rattlesnake Fire that burned more than 26,000 acres on the Fort Apache and San Carlos tribal lands in eastern Arizona.

After being released from prison, Tiwamangkala said she turned her life around. She now works as the advocacy director for the nonprofit Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander for Equity.

She said she has not petitioned the court to try to restore her voting rights because she still has to pay off the $13,000 she was ordered to pay in restitution as part of her sentence.

But as a queer Asian American woman and productive member of society, Tiwamangkala says she’s frustrated that she can’t vote, especially in a battleground state like Arizona, where even a small number of votes can somehow produce tight races. She believes that she and thousands of other disenfranchised voters in Arizona deserve to have their voices heard at the ballot box.

“My identity is political,” Tiwamangkala said. “And you know, in Arizona there’s a struggle with what democracy looks like. My vision of democracy is to have a multiracial, multicultural, multigenerational – all perspectives of people living in America to represent our government.“

Reach the reporter at [email protected].

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