Is voting a privilege or a right?

People have been fighting for suffrage in the U.S. since at least the 19th century, but there are still millions of Americans who are left out of the vote, and many of them have one thing in common-- a felony conviction.

My wife ran for office in 2016.

We had a mock election at an event, and I remember somebody approaching me, saying, "Man, I know you can't wait to vote for your wife," and that's when it really truly sunk in for me, you know, that I was just painfully reminded that I can't even vote for my own wife.

I'm Felecia For The Win, and this is "Roots of Resistance."

[lively music] Today, felony disenfranchisement laws can affect anyone with a felony conviction who lives in a state with restrictions, and these restrictions vary widely.

In some states, you only lose voting rights while incarcerated.

In some, it carries over through parole and probation.

And in others, the right to vote will only be reinstated after a governor's pardon, depending on the crime.

But the complexity of these laws doesn't end there.

Once they've done their time, not only is the formerly incarcerated person dealing with probation and parole, there's also a web of fines and fees that can also hamper the ability to vote.

There is no greater indicator of citizenship than really being able to vote, right?

But when you think about the power of it, right, it's not only a declaration of citizenship; it's actually a declaration of personhood and your place in society.

That's Desmond Meade, who in 2004 was released from prison after serving time for possession of a firearm with a previous felony conviction.

At the time of his release, he was still struggling with addiction and depression.

Eventually, he found a treatment center, and even attended law school at Florida International University.

By 2014, Desmond had earned his law degree and was active in his community, but was still unable to vote in his home state of Florida.

With the commitment to improve his condition and that of others, Desmond joined a grassroots movement, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, or the FRRC, to help restore voting rights for people like him and others with felony convictions living in Florida.

So is voting a right, or is it a privilege that the state can punitively withhold?

The U.S. Constitution does not clearly define voting as a right.

Any wording around voting primarily focuses on prohibiting states from denying votes.

For example, the 15th Amendment prohibits the federal government and states from denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The 19th Amendment has similar wording.

It prohibits states from denying the vote based on gender.

In colonial North America, voting rights were directly linked to moral standing in society.

The early colonies would remove voting access for moral violations, like drunkenness, bastardy, and fornication.

In addition to removing voting privileges, those who violated the moral or criminal code received permanent marks on their bodies, preventing them from moving to a new area and starting fresh.

And in the early colonial era, many crimes, such as murder and treason, were punishable by death.

Of course, the stakes were different back when voting rights were only granted to a few white men who owned land.

The practice of disenfranchisement gained its foothold in American society during the Reconstruction Era.

When the Civil War ended, former Confederate states were required to accept the 14th and 15th Amendment, which expanded voting rights for formerly enslaved Black men.

However, each of these amendments left huge loopholes that former Confederate states exploited to control the demographics of eligible voters.

For example, requirements like poll taxes and literacy tests to bar poor and uneducated voters.

And that's when almost all of the former Confederate states expanded the list of crimes that were considered felonies and passed laws removing the right to vote from anyone with a felony conviction, like in 1876, when Virginia expanded its felony disenfranchisement law to include crimes that Black citizens could be easily convicted of-- for example, petty theft.

When coupled with Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, which limited Black Americans movement through society, expanded felony laws created a system in which Black people were charged with felonies at a higher rate.

When you cannot show up to vote on a day that is convenient when you don't have to work, that is a failure of democracy, that's privilege.

When you cannot get assistance at the polls because of age, or any kind of like needs that you might have, especially like ADA compliance things, that is a matter of privilege, right?

When you can't have access to a ballot in your heart language, that is a matter of privilege.

To receive a felony conviction, to not receive certain programs that keep you out of the prison system as opposed to push you through it, that is a matter of privilege.

And all those things are tied to democracy.

So, should voting be a right?

Yes.

Have we been promised that as a right?

Yes, but it's the great American failure that voting is still a privilege.

Nowadays, conditions vary widely from state to state for people with felony convictions.

For example, in Maine and Vermont, there are no restrictions.

In fact, people with felonies can vote from prison.

In Florida, though, things are a little more complicated.

In 2018, the FRRC created, and with the help of others, passed Amendment 4 into the Florida Constitution.

This amendment stated that people convicted of non-violent felonies could vote after they completed probation and parole.

This historic change took seven years of constant work.

However, after it was passed, the legislature made an addition mandating that all fines and fees be paid before a returning citizen with the felony conviction could actually vote, and this is where things get really complex.

Florida's laws can cause individuals with a felony conviction to accumulate more felonies, even after serving their time.

Let's look at a hypothetical.

A woman from Orange County, Florida, writes a bad check over $150 at a grocery store.

She's convicted of a felony and serves one year in prison.

After her release, she moves from Orange County to Osceola County and wants to vote.

After voting in her new home county, she learns that she has outstanding court fees specific to Orange County.

Now, this matters, because as of 2022, voting in Osceola County when you have outstanding court fees relating to a felonious conviction is also a felony crime, and as a result, she could now be charged with another felony.

The 2024 election cycle has also raised some big questions about who can vote versus who can run for office.

Proponents of felony disenfranchisement argue that someone's failure to abide by the law should prevent them from participating in civil society, citing the fact that the 14th Amendment leaves room for abridging the right to vote if someone has committed a crime.

It left the interpretation of the law up to the states.

In other words, depending on your state of residence, voting is a privilege that can be revoked based on a criminal conviction.

On the other hand, opponents of these laws argue that when formerly incarcerated people engage in pro-social activities like voting, they are less likely to return to jail or prison.

This is also known as a "decrease in recidivism."

Studies show that formerly incarcerated people who can vote report feeling that their voice is heard and that voting contributes to a positive identity as a community member.

Respondents also reported that participating in the political process is connected to their intentions to stay out of jail.

The general public supports voting for people with felonies.

A 2022 poll showed that 54% of voters would get behind a law that guarantees voting rights for all citizens 18 and older, including citizens with felony convictions.

So where did the push for voter reinstatement begin?

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prompted over three decades of both legal and grassroots efforts to reinstate voting rights for people with felony convictions.

And because the work is specific to each state, the impact varied.

Places like California and New Mexico were successful in easing restrictions, while other states, like Iowa, passed voting rights for people with felonies, but the initiative was later repealed.

Restrictions on voting for people with felonies not only set the course for a person's life, but can also impact an entire election.

In 2000, Republican officials alleged that thousands of people with felony records in Florida were illegally registered to vote and needed to be removed from the U.S. presidential election count.

But the purge list was inaccurate.

44% of those on the list were African Americans, even though they only made up 11% of voters in the state.

And after the 2000 election, Florida conceded that 12,000 eligible voters had been wrongly labeled as ex-felons and were barred from voting, and George W. Bush's margin of victory over Al Gore was a mere 537 votes.

But make no mistake, it's not just African Americans who are affected by these laws.

Other racial groups are hit hard, too.

Latine and Native American communities face significant disenfranchisement in some states, worsening racial inequality.

So why is Florida such a critical story in rights restoration?

The answer lies in Amendment 4.

Before it passed, Florida had some of the harshest voting restrictions, requiring those with felony convictions to petition the clemency board to regain their voting rights.

Florida alone accounted for a staggering quarter of all Americans disenfranchised due to felony convictions.

Democracy needs all voices for all perspectives from all walks of life.

And so, what Amendment 4 did was created a pathway for people with felony convictions to be able to vote again, without them having to go beg a governor for clemency, or to go grovel at the knees of politicians.

Once a person has served their time, or completed their sentence, they should have the right to vote automatically restored, and Amendment 4 did just that.

Amendment 4 is a big step for supporters of voting re-enfranchisement, but there are still barriers in place.

And this brings us back to the fines and the fees, which might sound like some dry administrative measure, but is actually deeply impactful.

Once someone has completed probation and parole, they might expect that they can vote.

However, as we saw in our hypothetical situation earlier, fines can prohibitive.

Scores of returning citizens were arrested in the period from 2022 to 2023 after attempting to vote in the 2020 election without realizing that they owed fees.

(Sheena) So there are 67 counties in the state of Florida, and none of them have full access to the data from other counties.

In a place like Florida, where people move across county lines for family, and for jobs, and for housing, which is increasingly more expensive and less accessible-- when you move across county lines, you don't have clear access to the information from the place where you may have received a felony conviction.

The only entity that has the data for all 67 counties is the state of Florida.

So the governor has taken that data, looked up people who did not have the information that they needed to see that they weren't quite eligible yet because of fines and fees, and has said, "We're going to go after you," and did.

(Felecia) The next step in the FRRC's work is the Fines and Fees Program.

By raising millions of dollars, the program pays off outstanding court costs for eligible applicants, allowing many to vote for the first time and contribute to their communities.

(Desmond) We're people first.

To get people to see our humanity in spite of our mistakes, and when we get people to realize that our community, our democracy becomes better when we include more people, that everybody gains from that, and understand that that basic concept that a rising tide lifts all boats, I think that they'll be more inspired to continue down that track.

So is voting a privilege or a right?

Some experts in the field believe that if you break the law, you should not have a say in who upholds the law.

Other activists in the space believe that you should still have the citizenship right of voting even if you have made a mistake.

But what do you think?

Let us know in the comments.

I'm Felecia For The Win, and this is "Roots of Resistance."

Accessibility provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

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