Captain Jaye

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"Nearly three-fourths of individuals who are prevented from voting are not incarcerated. Although every state has procedures in place for obtaining a restoration of voting rights, many of these procedures are so involved and technical as to operate as de facto bars to restoration for those ex-offenders with limited resources and education. Indeed, the characterization of restoration as a hollow remedy is further supported by the fact that very few individuals subject to disenfranchisement ever successfully get the right to vote back – in 11 different states that practice disenfranchisement, fewer than 3% of ex-felons who were disenfranchised have successfully gotten their voting rights restored."

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“We next considered whether variation in state disenfranchisement policies accounted for this observed variation in recidivism across states. A transformation of the coefficient for a state‘s disenfranchisement law reveals that individuals who are released in states that permanently disenfranchise are roughly 19% more likely to be rearrested than those released in states that restore the franchise post-release. This finding provides initial evidence consistent with the thesis that disenfranchisement is directly related to recidivism" [later, in the same context] “Taken as a whole, our findings indicate that states which permanently disenfranchise ex-felons experience significantly higher rates of repeat offenses than states that do not.”

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"Our estimates of felon turnout range from a low of 20.5 percent (for the 1974 Congressional elections) to a high of 39 percent (for the 1992 presidential election). On average, we predict that about 35 percent of disenfranchised felons would have turned out to vote in presidential elections, and that about 24 percent would have participated in Senate elections during nonpresidential election years. Although these numbers are well below the corresponding rates among non-felons, they suggest that a non-trivial proportion of disenfranchised felons were likely to have voted if permitted to do so."

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"For the individual ex-felon, felon disenfranchisement laws deny them the opportunity to exercise the quintessential rights of citizenship, most notably the right to vote. As a result, ex-felons tend to be alienated ex-felons from mainstream society. For many ex-felons, this legalized exclusion is more often than not an extension of that which they may have experienced either because of poverty or because of race discrimination prior to becoming convicted felons, and leads them to commit such crimes again. In an article in the February 3, 2000 edition of USA Today David Cole writes that "we stamp [ex-felons] as outsiders and bar them from the quintessential act of citizenship, only increasing the likelihood that they will return to a life of crime." The refusal to restore the right to vote, as well as the host of other rights prohibited to ex-felons, denies them the opportunity to begin life anew as fully incorporated citizens. While felon disenfranchisement laws bar the exercise of some rights, the laws do not invalidate other profitable obligations associated with citizenship. Ex-felons who manage to become gainfully employed are still required to pay taxes even though they are denied the benefits associated with those duties such as the ability to elect their representatives or to decide on policies that will govern their lives, and lives of their families. Centuries ago this prospect of taxation without representation was untenable to some Americans. Today, however, such a policy is acceptable, as long as the voice that is denied is that of the ex-felons. Consequently, by alienating ex-felons and treating them as non-citizens, felon disenfranchisement laws merely contribute to the difficult process of reintegration for the ex-felon."

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