Locking Up the Ballot Box: An Analysis of Felon and Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement in Modern U.S. Society

Abstract

This thesis investigates the existence of felon and ex-felon disenfranchisement laws in the United States and the impact of these laws on African Americans. As the Supreme Court has ruled that felon disenfranchisement laws cannot be used with the explicit intention of preventing people from voting on the count of race, this thesis addresses how the laws have continued to exist and disenfranchise African Americans disproportionately compared to whites, attributing anti-black racism in the North and the South for their existence. Felon disenfranchisement is a concept that dates back to Ancient Greek and Roman times and was adopted in the United States as a means of preserving the “purity of the ballot box,” as well as deterring citizens from committing crimes. However, with the end of slavery and the granting of citizenship to African Americans, whites, mostly in the South, but also in the North, implemented new legislation into state constitutions to disenfranchise these potential black voters. Many of these racist disenfranchisement laws would end up being challenged in state courts and the Supreme Court. This thesis covers nine of these cases that show that felon disenfranchisement is a difficult issue to address since it is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, but the laws themselves cannot have been written with invidious discrimination in mind. To include new research and analysis, this thesis looks at disenfranchisement data from Alabama, California, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New York, and North Dakota to compare the practice of disenfranchisement of African Americans in 2016 between both Democrat- and Republican-leaning states. The results of this study show that while some states, such as Delaware and Iowa, do not disenfranchise African Americans in a disproportionate manner, Alabama, New York, Missouri, North Dakota, and Maryland do, which leads to the conclusion that even states that are deemed more progressive follow the same patterns as states that explicitly disenfranchised black voters in many ways. This thesis holds the hope that states will come to recognize the negative impact of felon disenfranchisement on not only African Americans, but on the United States as a whole.