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Restoring voting rights to people who have a conviction history has been a battle formerly incarcerated people have led for more than 20 years. Their exclusion from the electoral process once they’ve been released has never been fair, given that in every other way, they are expected to adhere to the responsibilities of citizenhood in America, including paying taxes.
On Election Day this year, Nebraska will take a step toward equity in this regard. Residents of the state who have completed their felony conviction sentence will no longer be barred from voting, according to NBC News. The establishment of voting rights restoration follows a State Supreme Court. Prior to that ruling, a two-year waiting period after the completion of a sentence before restoring voting rights, was required.
Earlier this year, state legislators voted across party lines to abolish the lengthy waiting period. However, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers argued that only the state’s board of pardons could reinstate voting rights, prompting Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen to direct local registrars to cease voter registration for individuals with felony convictions. He claimed that the laws enabling their enfranchisement were unconstitutional.
However, on Oct. 16, Nebraska’s Supreme Court overturned the previous decision, stating that state officials had failed to demonstrate that the law, known as L.B. 20, was unconstitutional. “The Secretary is ordered to remove any disqualification on registration he has imposed that is not contained within L.B. 20 and to comply in all respects with the provisions of L.B. 20,” the Supreme Court said in a letter published Wednesday.
An update posted on the Nebraska Secretary of State’s website now advises that individuals with prior felony convictions have a limited window to register to vote. The deadline for online registration is Friday, Oct. 18, while in-person registration must be completed by Oct. 25. Those individuals should receive a notification from the Department of Corrections, the parole administrator, or a judge confirming the completion of their sentence. Once they receive this confirmation, they will need to submit a new voter registration application to the county election office where they intend to reside in order to vote.
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A historic shift
Nebraska’s recent decision is a historic shift, as voting rights for former felons have traditionally been heavily restricted. According to Nonprofit Vote, nearly all states, except for two and the District of Columbia, impose some form of voting ban on citizens with felony convictions. The specifics of these laws vary widely.
In states like Georgia, New Mexico, and Idaho, voting rights are automatically restored upon release from jail or prison. Conversely, some states maintain voting bans even during probation or parole, while others, such as Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, either permanently disenfranchise individuals with felony records or require them to petition for the restoration of their voting rights. This process often depends on the nature of the conviction, the outcome of individual petitions, gubernatorial pardons, or whether there are outstanding fees or fines associated with their case.
The Sentencing Project estimates that around 4 million people are disenfranchised due to felony convictions, a number that has decreased by 31% since 2016, largely due to states adopting more lenient policies and reductions in prison, probation, and parole populations. Historical data shows a troubling trend: approximately 1.2 million people were disenfranchised in 1976, rising to 5.9 million in 2016 before dropping to 4.4 million in 2022.
The enduring harm to Black communities
Florida stands out as the leader in disenfranchisement, with over 961,000 individuals currently barred from voting, often due to the inability to pay court-ordered fines and fees. Despite a 2018 ballot measure that restored voting rights, the state effectively nullified the will of the people by imposing excessive financial constraints.
Disenfranchisement disproportionately affects African Americans, with 1 in 22 voting-age African Americans barred from voting, a rate more than three times that of their non-African American counterparts. Among adult African Americans, 4.5% are disenfranchised compared to 1.3% of the adult non-African American population. In 15 states, over 5% of the African American adult population is denied the right to vote due to felony convictions. Further, the National Institutes of Health reported that:
In the United States, Blacks are banned from voting at four times the rate of other races. In the South, more than 1 in 5 Blacks are unable to vote due to felony convictions. But perhaps more shocking, is the fact that a significant number of these individuals were stripped of their rights before they were old enough to vote.
As children, they were eliminated from the democratic process and left politically powerless.
One wonders what the state of the nation would be if felony disenfranchisement didn’t stranglehold so much of the Black vote.
Nebraska is taking a significant step toward change. The Sentencing Project highlighted that the recent Supreme Court ruling will restore voting rights to approximately 7,000 individuals in the state, enabling them to participate in this crucial election.
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