Expanding Voting Rights to All Citizens in the Era of Mass Incarceration

The Supreme Court of Canada has twice ruled in favor of protecting voting rights for people in As the United States maintains the highest incarceration prison, stating that the “denial of the right to vote on rate and largest prison population in the world, outdat- the basis of attributed moral unworthiness is inconsis- ed and undemocratic voting restrictions continue to tent with the respect for. [...] after the fall of Apartheid, the Constitutional Court of In 2002, during a hearing on the voting rights of people South Africa ensured voting rights for people in prison.3 with a prior felony conviction, Senator Mitch McConnell argued that re-enfranchisement would “dilute the vote DISENFRANCHISEMENT BORN OF RACIST of law-abiding citizens.”4 Such positions are not only LAWS, POLICIES, AND PRACTICES. [...] In many states, people in prison are counted in the jurisdiction where In a democracy, everyone has the right to vote whether they are incarcerated, rather than the jurisdiction they or not we like them or their conduct. [...] This process, known as prison gerryman- one group of citizens is unworthy of the vote — that dering, has significant ramifications on the distribution opens the door to the next group, and the next group of political power.7 By restricting the franchise, states until democracy ceases to exist. [...] Many people are not even aware that they lose the right to vote when they are sentenced, largely due Over the last 25 years, half of states have passed to the complexity of state disenfranchisement laws reforms to limit felony disenfranchisement in an effort and the failure of states to notify potential voters of to address this byproduct of mass incarceration.