More than 4.6 million Americans are currently disenfranchised due to criminal convictions.¹ This means that the people who are most impacted by the criminal justice system―and policies passed regarding criminal justice reform―are unable to make their voices heard at the ballot box.

Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) have introduced the Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023. This momentous legislation would eliminate disenfranchisement and give power back to marginalized communities.²

The act would:

• Automatically restore voting rights in federal elections to all people who have criminal convictions
• Bar the prosecution of Americans who are incarcerated and complete an election ballot for an election they are not eligible to vote in
• Get rid of state-level barriers that prevent people with criminal convictions―those currently incarcerated and those who have been released―from exercising their inalienable right to vote in federal elections

Every American deserves to have an equal say in our democracy. Contact your members of Congress today and tell them to co-sponsor and pass the Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023.

These felony disenfranchisement laws are rooted in racism, white supremacy, and call back to some of the darkest, most shameful moments in our country’s history.

Felony disenfranchisement laws existed before the Civil War, but the laws were narrow and were rarely enforced. After the Civil War, when Black men were enfranchised via the 15th Amendment, many states in the former Confederacy―and some in the North―began punitively criminalizing Black people’s existence. Some of the “crimes” Black men were convicted of include “moral turpitude” and “vagrancy”―which could be interpreted in any way.³

At the Alabama state constitutional convention in 1901, the delegates explicitly stated their primary goal was establishing white supremacy and that the best way to do that would be by expanding the state’s felony disenfranchisement laws to include more trivial crimes.⁴

The legacy of these laws is still with us today. While Black people make up only 13% of the U.S. population, they make up 37% of the prison populations.⁵ 1 in 13 Black people of voting age are disenfranchised―that’s 7.4% of the U.S. Black population not able to have their voices heard at the ballot box.⁶

Enough is enough. Congress needs to fix this broken system and throw these felony disenfranchisement laws into the garbage heap of history where they belong. Send a direct message to your members of Congress, telling them to co-sponsor and pass the Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023.

Thank you for all that you do,

Dominique Espinoza
Policy and Strategic Partnerships Manager , Coalition on Human Needs

¹Locked out 2022: Estimates of people denied voting rights due to a felony conviction
² National Voting in Prison Coalition Praises the Landmark Introduction of Inclusive Democracy Act of 2023
³ Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
⁴ Alabama’s 1901 Constitution: Instrument of Power
⁵ Prison Policy Institute: Race and Ethnicity
⁶ State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016