He is 1 in 44 adults barred from voting because of a current or previous criminal conviction. The project said the U.S. Half of the states have moved to change their laws and policies to expand their voting rights in the last 25 years.
Amy Fatig, the project’s executive director, said in a statement that the basis of any democracy is the right to vote. “Laws barring people from voting have destabilized American communities and families in America for decades by denying them a voice in determining their fate.”
A sentence defense project study found that about three-quarters of people who are barred from voting live in their communities, have completed their sentences in full, or are pending probation or parole.
And those who are allowed to vote have a lot to do with people who end up in power.
“It is clear that inequality in the criminal justice system is linked to inequality in political representation.”
The Punishment Project is a for-profit organization that produces research to promote reform of sentencing policy, eliminate unjust racial inequalities and practices, and advocate for imprisonment options.
What that population looks like
According to the project:
1 in 16 African American adults is deprived. This is 3.7 times more than non-African Americans of voting age.
African-American expulsion rates also vary by state according to the project.
“In seven states – Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming – more than one in seven African Americans have been laid off, more than double the national average for African Americans.”
More than 560,000 Latinos are barred from voting. The project says it is a rough estimate, as ethnicity is reported unevenly in the prison population. The project states that at least 34 states deprive people of Latin age age more than the general population.
About 1.2 million women The project said they have been deprived.
More people have been banned in the southern states
The project said the southern states have the highest criminal waiver rates, where restrictions on voting to limit the political power of black men were passed during the Jim Crow era.
In Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, 1 in 13 people – more than 8% of the adult population – is deprived, he said.
In Florida, more than 1.1 million people are barred from voting. The project said the state is the leader in getting rid of the nation’s nuances in full.
A constitutional amendment passed by Florida voters in November 2018, with a few exceptions, allowed a majority of people who met “all conditions of punishment” to vote.
Instead, he wrote, “it promotes the full rehabilitation of returning citizens and ensures the full satisfaction of the punishment imposed for the crimes by which the fellows have forfeited the right to vote.”
CNN’s Rebecca Rise and Frederica Chautte contributed to this report.
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