Collaborative Research: The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States

This project will examine the origins, scope, and consequences of felon disenfranchisement in the United States. Our preliminary estimates suggest that 4.6 million voters were disenfranchised in 1996 due to their criminal status, up from less than 500,000 as recently as 1972. The project has three general objectives: (1) Estimate the size of the disenfranchised felon population and model the trends in the size of this group into the future. (2) Assess some of the electoral consequences of disenfranchisement, given that the felon population is drawn disproportionately from the ranks of racial minorities and the poor, and hence is more likely to take votes from Democratic than Republican candidates. (3) Examine the sources of the differences among the states in the treatment of felon voting rights. Methodolgies will include computer simulations, analyses of data from the National Election Study, and state-level turnout information from the Current Population Survey Voting Supplement surveys. Using information about the statutory histories of the different state laws, we will explore the factors producing these different outcomes through a quantitative examination of the timing of changes in policy regimes across all states, and a more detailed case-oriented examination of several states that have recently changed their law. Although legal theorists and policy advocates have examined some aspects of the issue, our investigation will be the first systematic social scientific examination of felon disenfranchisement.