Felon Disenfranchisement and the Fourteenth Amendment: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Access to the democratic process for felons and ex-felons can be severely limited based upon the felon disenfranchisement law in each state. Currently, it is estimated that 5.85 million adult voters are denied access to the polls by felon disenfranchisement, with a large amount of those impacted being young, male and disproportionately African-American. However, when this policy developed in each state, what prompted its creation and how it continues to impact felons today are questions that have not been fully answered. This poster aims to fill this gap by providing a qualitative manifest and latent content analysis that examines the original passage of each state’s felon disenfranchisement law in in relation to the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (the constitutional basis of support for felon disenfranchisement laws) to assess the potential racial motivations behind enacting felon disenfranchisement policies. In addition, the current status of each state’s law, along with the percentages for total and African-American disenfranchisement by state will also be presented to assess current implications.

Authors

• Stephanie Karas, Sam Houston State University

• Will Oliver, Sam Houston State University