Voting Rights for Felons

Investigate Your State July 1

Checking The Success Of Your State's Efforts To Restore Voting Rights To The Formerly Incarcerated

We learned no more than 1 in 4 of the newly eligible voters had registered for the 2020 election in four key states. Here’s how to examine yours.

By Andrew R. Calderón

News June 23

Millions of People With Felonies Can Now Vote. Most Don’t Know It.

In a handful of key states, no more than 1 in 4 formerly incarcerated people registered in time for the 2020 election, a Marshall Project analysis found.

By Nicole Lewis AND Andrew R. Calderón

Norris Henderson founded Voice of the Experienced (VOTE) to organize incarcerated people to engage in civic issues after he was released from Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Life Inside March 12, 2020

What I Learned About Voting Rights in the Fields of Angola

"We asked ourselves: Do we want to change our conditions, or do we want to change our circumstances?"

By Norris Henderson as told to Maurice Chammah

Election Commission employees tested voting machines in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2014.

News September 19, 2019

Tennessee's Voter Restoration Gauntlet

The state’s byzantine felony disenfranchisement laws keep hundreds of thousands of formerly incarcerated residents from registering to vote.

By Nicole Lewis

Voters in Hialeah, Florida, outside Miami cast their ballots on Nov. 6.

Commentary November 13, 2018

Voters Want Criminal Justice Reform. Are Politicians Listening?

Midterms show wide support across party lines for changing the system.

Daniel Gotoff and Celinda Lake

On Tuesday, Florida voters approved Amendment 4, which restored the voting rights of people with past felony convictions.

Commentary November 7, 2018

Florida’s Election Shows the True Promise of Restoring Voting Rights

With the passage of Amendment 4, more than a million people intimately affected by the criminal justice system have become more empowered to shape it.

Jennifer Rae Taylor