Arguments for and against automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony

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Voting rights for people convicted of a felony vary substantially from state to state. As of April 2025, people convicted of a felony in Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. retained the right to vote while incarcerated. In 38 other states, people convicted of a felony could not vote while incarcerated but automatically regained the right to vote upon their release or at some point thereafter. Ten states did not automatically restore voting rights for people convicted of a felony.

In states with automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony, states restore voting rights automatically, without a waiting period or additional steps. In some of these states, voting rights are restored once people convicted of a felony are released from incarceration, and in other states they must complete the full sentence first, including probation and parole.

Whether people convicted of a felony should have their voting rights automatically restored is a subject of debate.

Supporters of automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony argue voting is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, that automatic restoration of voting rights promotes rehabilitation and reduces recidivism, and that disenfranchisement disproportionately impacts minorities.

Opponents of automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony argue that people convicted of a felony should be required to prove that they are reformed before being allowed to vote, that people who break laws shouldn’t be allowed input into making laws, and that disenfranchisement laws are race-neutral.

On this page, you will find:

• Arguments at a glance: A brief summary of support and opposition arguments.
• Support arguments in detail: Detailed support arguments from a variety of sources.
• Opposition arguments in detail: Detailed opposition arguments from a variety of sources.
• Further reading: Links to resources with more information on automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony.

Voting rights for people convicted of a felony

The map below shows the voting rules for people convicted of a felony across the U.S.

Arguments at a glance

This section includes quotes briefly summarizing some of the most prevalent arguments for and against automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony.

Arguments for and against automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony

Support

Opposition

"State felony disenfranchisement laws keep millions of Americans from voting. These laws aren’t just anti-democratic — they send the message that the voices of individuals returning to their communities don’t count. And these voting bans disproportionately affect Black Americans." - The Brennan Center for Justice (2023)

"We must ask ourselves if citizens who have no respect for the laws of the land should have a hand in their authorship. There is an assumption or at least an aspiration that the right to vote would be the happy providence of the moral and responsible, the sober-minded and the thoughtful. We do not let 7-year-olds pull the lever and we don’t (for the most part) allow non-citizens to participate in our democracy." - Editorial staff, The Boston Herald (2019)

Support arguments in detail

Three arguments in favor of automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony are that voting is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution, that automatic restoration of voting rights promotes rehabilitation and reduces recidivism, and that disenfranchisement disproportionately impacts minorities. This section details those arguments from a variety of sources arranged by topic.

Claim: Voting is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution

In 1974, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a dissenting opinion for the case Richardson v. Ramirez, which argued that voting is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution.

“	I think it clear that the State has not met its burden of justifying the blanket disenfranchisement of former felons presented by this case. There is certainly no basis for asserting that ex-felons have any less interest in the democratic process than any other citizen. Like everyone else, their daily lives are deeply affected and changed by the decisions of government. ... In my view, the disenfranchisement of ex-felons must be measured against the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause of ... the Fourteenth Amendment. That analysis properly begins with the observation that, because the right to vote 'is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government,' ... voting is a "fundamental" right.	”
—Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1974)

Claim: Automatic restoration of voting rights promotes rehabilitation and reduces recidivism

Minnesota State Senate President Bobby Joe Champion (D), the primary sponsor of the Restore the Vote Act, said following its passage in 2023:

“	In Minnesota, we have more than 55,000 of our friends, neighbors, and family members who are not incarcerated but are barred from voting ... The individuals impacted by this bill – Restore the Vote – are paying taxes, raising families, and contributing to our communities. They should be allowed to vote. The research is also clear in showing that when formerly incarcerated people are connected to their communities and participating in pro-social activities such as voting, recidivism goes down.	”
—Minnesota State Senate President Bobby Joe Champion (D) (2023)

In a 2023 policy brief about restoring voting rights for people convicted of a felony titled "Increasing Public Safety by Restoring Voting Rights," Kristen M. Budd and Niki Monazzam of The Sentencing Project argued that restoring voting rights for people with felony convictions reduces recidivism.

According to its website, the The Sentencing Project says it is a nonprofit research center that "advocates for effective and humane responses to crime that minimize imprisonment and criminalization of youth."

“	Restoring voting rights for people with felony convictions can improve public safety. Voting is among a range of prosocial behaviors in which justice-impacted persons can partake, like getting a college education, that is associated with reduced criminal conduct. Among Americans with a history of criminal legal system involvement, having the right to vote or the act of voting is related to reduced recidivism. The re-entry process after incarceration improves because restoring voting rights gives citizens the sense that their voice can be heard in the political process, and contributes to building an individual’s positive identity as a community member.	”
—Kristen M. Budd and Niki Monazzam, The Sentencing Project (2023)

Claim: Disenfranchisement of people convicted of a felony disproportionately impacts minorities

In 2022, a report from the Sentencing Project titled "Locked Out 2022: Estimates of People Denied Voting Rights" included the following statistics on felony disenfranchisement for African Americans:

“	One in 19 African Americans of voting age is disenfranchised, a rate 3.5 times that of non-African Americans. Among the adult African American population, 5.3 percent is disenfranchised compared to 1.5 percent of the adult non-African American population. More than one in 10 African American adults is disenfranchised in eight states – Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia. ... African American disenfranchisement rates in Tennessee and Mississippi now exceed 15 percent of the adult voting eligible population. Whereas 9 states disenfranchised at least 5 percent of their African American adult citizens in 1980, 17 states do so today.	”
—The Sentencing Project report (2022)

In a 2019 piece for the ACLU titled "The Racist Roots of Denying Incarcerated People Their Right to Vote," Jeffery Robinson wrote:

“	In the 15 years between 1865 and 1880, at least 13 states — more than a third of the country’s 38 states — enacted broad felony disenfranchisement laws. The theory was simple — convict them of crimes, strip away the right to vote, imprison them, and lease them out as convict labor and Blacks would be returned to a condition as close to slavery as possible. No one tried to hide the intent of these laws. In 1894, a white South Carolina newspaper argued that amendments to the voting laws were necessary to avoid whites being swept away at the polls by the Black vote. In 1901, Alabama amended its Constitution to expand disenfranchisement to all crimes involving “moral turpitude” — a vague term that was applied to felonies and misdemeanors. ... What is the result of this history? Black Americans of voting age are more than four times as likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population. One of every 13 Black adults is disenfranchised. In some states like Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and, until recently, Florida, one in five Blacks have been disenfranchised. In total, 2.2 million Black citizens are banned from voting. Thirty-eight percent of the disenfranchised population in America is Black.	”
—Jeffery Robinson, ACLU (2019)

Opposition arguments in detail

Three arguments against automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony are that people convicted of a felony should be required to prove that they are reformed before being allowed to vote, that people who break laws shouldn’t be allowed input into making laws, and that disenfranchisement laws are race-neutral. This section details those arguments from a variety of sources arranged by topic.

Claim: People convicted of a felony should be required to prove that they are reformed before being allowed to vote

In a 2019 article for The Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation wrote the following:

“	It is law-abiding citizens in high-crime areas where people are often disproportionately poor and minority. It is hardly in their best interests to allow the criminals who victimize them to stand next to them in the ballot box, figuratively speaking. Most states restore the right to vote once the felon is out of prison and has completed any required parole or probation, although some states also have a waiting period beyond that because of high recidivism rates. This makes sense. The right to vote should not be restored until felons have been released and shown that they really have learned their lesson, turned over a new leaf, and are now willing to abide by the rules under which we all live.	”
—Hans von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation (2019)

Claim: People who break laws shouldn’t be allowed input into making laws

In a 2020 New Yorker article titled "Why Shouldn't Prisoners Be Voters?", story editor Daniel A. Gross wrote:

“	If you’re not willing to follow the law yourself, then you shouldn’t have a right in making the law for everyone else… The common denominator is that we have certain objective minimum qualifications, in terms of responsibility and trustworthiness and commitment to our laws, that we require of people before they participate in the solemn enterprise of self-government.	”
—Daniel A. Gross, The New Yorker (2020)

In 2019 opinion piece in The New York Post titled "What Democrats Have Forgotten about Citizenship," George Mason University Scalia Law School professor F.H. Buckley wrote:

“	If you are in prison, you’re subject to the worst punishment most states can inflict one anyone. Barring your voting rights is no greater burden and is justified if the prisoner has been found to be so unworthy as to merit prison time in the first place. ... I don’t think they would have the best interests of the community in mind. The criminal shouldn’t be able to vote for his prosecutor. We don’t need his advice on what’s a crime.	”
—F.H. Buckley, The New York Post (2019)

Claim: Disenfranchisement laws are race-neutral

In a 2020 perspective in The Washington Post titled "Five Myths About Felony Disenfranchisement," Chandra Bozelko and Ryan Lo identified myth number two as "disenfranchisement laws are relics of Reconstruction":

“	Felony disenfranchisement laws are often characterized as ancient anachronisms. In a 2014 speech, then-Attorney General Eric Holder said that “well over a century has passed since post-Reconstruction states used these measures to strip African Americans of their most fundamental rights.” The New York Times also described the practice as “guided by the ghosts of the post-Civil War era, when disenfranchisement laws were aimed at newly freed blacks.” But not all states adopted these policies as a reaction to the 15th Amendment. In fact, only 13 states enacted felony disenfranchisement statutes during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Fifteen states did so after Reconstruction, and of those 15, nine were passed during the 20th century. Massachusetts passed its version less than 20 years ago.	”
—Chandra Bozelko and Ryan Lo, The Washington Post (2020)

In a 2019 National Review article titled "The push to allow felons to vote is more about gaining Democratic voters than rehabilitating people," Kevin Williamson said Democrats were more concerned about a political advantage than racial justice:

“	As a matter of political calculation, the Democrats probably are less interested in supermax-cloistered terrorists than in African Americans, who were more than twice as likely to vote Democrat as white voters in 2018 (90 percent vs. 44 percent) and who are about five times as likely to be incarcerated at some point in their lives. One study puts the number of black men convicted of a felony at 33 percent, a genuinely shocking figure, and there is evidence that African Americans also are more likely to be wrongly convicted. Startling as these figures are, it is not obvious why the restoration of convicted felons’ voting rights is a good idea at all, much less something that should be at the top of the agenda. We exclude felons from voting for much the same reason that we generally exclude them from practicing law: We do not trust them with that power because of the contempt for the law they have demonstrated.	”
—Kevin Williamson, National Review (2019)

Further reading

• Voting rights for people convicted of a felony—Ballotpedia's overview page on voting rights for convicted felons.

• Arguments for and against automatic restoration of voting rights for people convicted of a felony—Ballotpedia's page on automatic restoration of voting rights for convicted felons.

• Felon Voting Rights—National Conference of State Legislatures guide to voting rights for people convicted of a felony in each state.

• Pew Research Center—Pew Research Center article "How Americans view some of the voting policies approved at the ballot box"

Footnotes

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