Prison Index Fact Sheet: Disenfranchisement

Felon Disenfranchisement: Jim Crow Redux

African-Americans barred from the ballot by "reason" of criminal conviction

• Percent of African-American men disenfranchised (not allowed to vote, temporarily or permanently) by a felony conviction: 13.1%
• Percent of all voting age Americans disenfranchised by reason of a felony conviction: 2.28%
• Number of states that disenfranchise more than 10% of their African-American population: 16
  

Each state picks its own method of disenfranchisement

• Number of states that deny the vote, for life, to all ex-offenders in their state who have completed their sentences: 8
• Number of states that deny the vote to some or all of their citizens who have completed their sentences: 15
• Number of states that disenfranchise prisoners convicted of a felony: 48
• Number of states that disenfranchise felony probationers: 29
• Number of states that disenfranchise felons on parole: 33
  

History

• Year the Civil War ends, and the states of the former Confederacy put under military rule: 1865
• Number of African-Americans elected to state legislatures in states of the former Confederacy, 1872: 324
• Year federal troops left the South and Reconstruction ends: 1877
• Year Mississippi passes constitution disenfranchising only citizens convicted of crimes thought more likely to be committed by African-Americans: 1890
• Number of African-Americans elected to state legislatures in states of the former Confederacy, 1900: 0
• Year a federal court ruled that felon disenfranchisement does not bear “the taint of historically-rooted racial discrimination”: 1985
  

Today

• Percent of voting age population that is African-American, 200018: 11.4%
• Percent of state legislators that are African-American, 200019: 7.7%