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During the 2006 Florida gubernatorial election, both major party candidates supported easing the road for felons to regain the right to vote. No coincidence this is a major issue in the Sunshine State: Florida’s process of restoration has barred nearly a million ex-felons from voting.
That is the most in the nation—triple the amount of runner-up Virginia, according to the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group.
Voting in Florida received heavy scrutiny ever since the 2000 presidential election. The state’s handling of felon voting rights has been one of the major problem areas.
In 2001, the state settled a lawsuit alleging that it had inaccurately kicked thousands of voters—65 percent of whom were black—off the rolls in 2000, claiming that they were felons. Another lawsuit that year resulted in more than 15,000 ex-felons regaining the right to vote after the state failed to inform them of and assist them with their right to apply for restoration. And in 2004, the Miami Herald published a series of investigative reports documenting flaws in Florida’s process of clemency, which requires released felons to appear before the governor and his cabinet to appeal for their rights. A major loophole resulted in thousands failing to receive their chance to regain their rights.
The overall process was said to be so cumbersome that it created a backlog of thousands more. In many cases, restoration was denied without explanation. Then-Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) record of voting rights denials far outpaced anything in recent memory: 200,000 since the beginning of his term.
Florida had 85,000 inmates in the last fiscal year.
While new Gov. Charlie Crist (R) supports automatic restoration of voting rights for felons, the other members of the Clemency Board—whose votes are needed to enact a rules change in lieu of a constitutional amendment—do not.
New York ranks among the more lenient half of states in treatment of felon’s voting rights. Once a felon is released from prison or finished with parole, his rights are automatically restored. And if someone is sentenced to probation instead of prison, he retains his rights as well.
In November 2006, the New York State Bar Association decided to support legislation granting parolees automatic restoration of their voting rights. The Bar Association report argued this would strengthen minority communities, “given the disproportionate numbers of minorities among those who are on parole.”
The Bar Association also suggested distributing voter registration cards, provisional ballots and absentee ballots to those awaiting trial and in jail for non-felony offenses, in an effort to enforce those New Yorkers’ rights under law.
More than half of New York’s felons and parolees are from New York City.
Felons are counted as part of the populations around their prisons—a 2006 Census Bureau study released last year determined it to be too cumbersome to count prisoners at their home of record. But only in Maine and Vermont are the incarcerated allowed to vote and thereby affect local elections.
In New York, the Prison Policy Initiative advocacy group found seven upstate Senate districts that would not have enough residents to qualify without their inmate populations.
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