The Effect of Felony Disenfranchisement Reform on Voter Turnout

• In Event: Gerrymandering, Race and Voting in the US

Abstract

According to the Sentencing Project, between 1997 and 2023, 26 states passed legislation to reduce the severity of their felony disenfranchisement laws (FDLs). These policy reforms have collectively served to re-enfranchise over two million formerly disenfranchised citizens. Although there have been a handful of studies of the effects of FDLs on voter turnout, most of these studies are based on data from two or more decades ago, prior to the most recent wave of reform. As a result, we know very little about the impact that contemporary changes in state FDLs have had on elections. In this paper, we seek to estimate the causal effect of changes in state felony disenfranchisement laws on voter turnout over the last two decades. To examine this question, we conduct difference-in-difference analyses that rely on individual-level, repeated cross-section data on voter turnout and state-level treatment variables reflecting changes in FDLs. We estimate the effects of three different types of FDL reforms that affect (1) the breadth of disqualifying convictions, (2) the timing of voting rights restoration, and (3) administrative processes and additional citizen requirements for voting rights restoration. We find that FDL reform related to the timing of voting rights restoration has led to a statistically significant increase in voter turnout, especially among Black, Hispanic, and less-educated citizens. Specifically, we estimate that FDL reform has led to an increase of approximately .03 in the probability of voting among these voter subgroups. In addition, we examine the conditional effects of FDL reform, as mediated by the state and local political environment, including partisan control of the administrative agencies responsible for FDL implementation. The results have important implications for the potential for FDL reform to improve access to the polls for people who have been re-enfranchised by changes in state law.

Authors

• Richard C. Fording, University of Alabama

• Anna Davidson, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa

• Alexandria Coronado, University of Alabama