Felony Disenfranchisement and Voting Rights Restoration in the States

This Article analyzes the legal, political, and policy dimensions of state level efforts to restore voting rights for persons with felony convictions through popular initiatives and state legislation, and civil rights litigation. The article analyzes recent progress on felon voting rights restoration across several states, highlighting the variety of strategies and institutional mechanisms that have been utilized by voting rights and civil rights groups and other organizations through legislative and executive processes. It also analyzes recent federal court litigation challenging felony disenfranchisement in Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama—states that continue to disenfranchise large numbers of persons with felony convictions even after their release from prison. Recent federal court litigation in Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama illustrates the latest litigation strategies and approaches for challenging existing felony disenfranchisement regimes, including wealth-based equal protection, Twenty-Fourth Amendment poll tax claims, procedural due process claims, and structural race-based equal protection claims.