New laws restore voting rights to residents with felony convictions • Florida Phoenix

As political campaigns compete for every vote, the Plains states of Nebraska and Oklahoma have passed laws aimed at restoring voting rights to people with felonies. Thousands of voters could be drawn back into the political process, potentially affecting election results in some communities.

Other states have taken steps to expand or restrict access to ballots for residents convicted of crimes. The laws may only affect a few thousand voters in each state, but in close races those numbers could make a difference.

Nebraska’s new law, passed in the spring, eliminates a two-year waiting period and restores voting rights to an estimated 7,000 Nebraskans who have served their sentences since 2022, according to The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit criminal justice research and advocacy organization.

On July 17 – two days before the law was set to take effect – Republican Attorney General Mike Hilgers issued an opinion stating that the new law violated the Nebraska Constitution. Hilgers also argued that the underlying 2005 law, which automatically restored voting rights two years after serving a felony, was unconstitutional.

As a result, Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen ordered county elections offices to stop registering people with felony convictions.

But last week, the Nebraska Supreme Court ordered Evnen to implement the law “immediately.”

Now, newly eligible Nebraskans have until Friday’s in-person voter registration deadline to register. Interest groups have urged Evnen to extend the deadline. The Secretary of State told Stateline that the state’s final registration deadline will not be extended.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma restores voting rights even after residents have completed their sentences – including prison time, parole and probation. But earlier this year, lawmakers passed a law guaranteeing the right to vote immediately upon receiving a pardon or commutation.

The new law, which will come into effect in January, clarifies the voting rights of people who have previously been convicted of a crime but whose sentences have been commuted. Hundreds of Oklahomans were released from prison in 2019 in the nation’s largest mass commutation, after state voters approved a ballot measure converting many drug-related charges to felonies.

Last year, Minnesota and New Mexico both lifted voting restrictions for people with felony convictions, restoring their voting rights after completing their incarceration. Previously, these residents had to serve their entire sentence, including parole or probation, before regaining the right to vote.

Now, less than two weeks before Election Day, tens of thousands of previously disenfranchised voters will be able to cast their ballots — some for the first time.

Nationally, however, approximately 4 million U.S. citizens cannot vote this year because they have ever been convicted of a crime, according to The Sentencing Project.

Most of these people – about seven in ten – live in their communities; they have served their sentences or are still under supervision while on probation or parole. The others remain in prison.

New restrictions on voting rights

Several states have taken steps in the past year to further restrict voting rights for people with felony convictions.

In April 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a state law banning those on probation, parole or other forms of supervision from voting, overturning a lower court’s 2022 decision that struck down the statute.

The Tennessee Supreme Court issued a ruling in July 2023 requiring felons to have their voting rights restored by a judge or provide proof that they had been pardoned.

And in Virginia, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin in March 2023 reversed the near-automatic restoration of voting rights — a process that had been used by both Democratic and Republican governors in the state for more than a decade. As a result, Virginians convicted of felonies must now apply to have their voting rights restored.

History of disenfranchisement

Laws disenfranchising people with felonies predate the founding of the United States, according to voting rights experts. And most disenfranchisement laws were passed after the Civil War.

“Criminal disenfranchisement really spread in the United States after the Civil War in the Southern states as a way to disenfranchise black men,” said Blair Bowie, attorney and director of Restore Your Vote project of the Campaign. Legal Center, a legal interest group. The center has a hotline and an online tool for people to check if they can vote in their state.

Today, some states restore voting rights upon release from prison, while others require people to wait until they are pardoned, complete probation or parole, pay all fines, fees and restitution, adhere to a waiting period, or comply with some combination. of these requirements. Some states prohibit people with felony convictions from voting based on the type of crime committed.

No one is automatically registered to vote; people have to register themselves.

In Florida, a state constitutional amendment that passed overwhelmingly in 2018 restored the voting rights of all but the most dangerous felons who have done their time and paid all fines, fees and restitution obligations. A federal judge in Tallahassee concluded that this amounted to an unconstitutional poll tax, especially because the state’s balkanized legal systems do a poor job of keeping track of these obligations. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the law in September 2020.

In two states — Maine and Vermont — and the District of Columbia, felons never lose their right to vote, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Voting access in correctional facilities

In many states, incarcerated U.S. citizens retain their right to vote, including in situations where they are detained before trial or held in local jails.

Earlier this year, for example, Virginia passed a law allowing registered voters who are incarcerated awaiting trial or who have been convicted of a crime to vote by absentee ballot.

For those in jail, however, barriers to voting can include difficulty registering or requesting an absentee ballot, paying postage and even having access to a pen to fill out the ballot, Bowie said. the Campaign Legal Center.

“Their right to access the ballot box is theoretically constitutionally protected,” Bowie said. “The reality is it’s hard to vote and it’s hard to enforce that constitutional right.”

This story first appeared in Stateline, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. If you have any questions, please contact editor Scott S. Greenberger: (email protected). Follow Stateline on Facebook and X. Michael Moline contributed from Tallahassee.