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Reconsidering the Disparate Racial Impact of Felon Voting Disenfranchisement

Fri, January 18, 5:00 to 6:20pm, JW Marriott Austin, Alamo Foyer

Abstract

This paper seeks to replicate the findings of Aman, White, & Gavin’s 2003 study finding that felon voting disenfranchisement laws depressed voter turnout among both Caucasian and African-American voters during the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections with a disproportionately larger effect on African-American voters. Applying the original study’s methodology to data from the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 presidential elections by dividing states into three groups based on their felon voting laws and then examining the aggregate voter turnout for each group for both white, non-Hispanic and Black voters shows that the effect documented by Aman, White, & Gavin is still observable, but has lessened, in three of the elections studied. In the 2008 election the effect is reversed with increased turnout for both white and black voters in states with the most restrictive felon voting laws. The researcher attributes this aberration to the historic candidacy of Barack Obama, the first black major party candidate, but notes that it is not observable in the 2012 election, when Obama was likewise on the ballot. In findings not observed in the initial study, this replication additionally suggests that African-Americans are more likely to vote if they live in a state with a large African-American population. The racial impact of felon voter disenfranchisement challenges assumptions of the fairness of the practice.

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