WASHINGTON, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Less than 3 percent of ex-felons are able to regain their voting rights in the most restrictive states, according to a study conducted by the Sentencing Project.
The Sentencing Project is part of the Right to Vote Campaign that lobbies for voting rights for ex-felons in Alabama, Florida, Maryland, New York and Texas. About 4.7 million people in the United States are not eligible to vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws, according to the campaign.
Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Virginia, Wyoming and Washington state are considered the most restrictive states.
The Sentencing Project studied 14 states that disenfranchise persons after they complete a sentence -- six do so for all people convicted of felonies and eight do so for other categories or specific time periods. This can include an 18-year-old convicted of a first-time, non-violent offense and sentenced to probation.
Very limited numbers of ex-felons regain their voting rights or understand the process to do so, said Marc Mauer, assistant director of The Sentencing Project and co-author of the study. For example, 107 people have had their voting rights restored in Mississippi since 1992, which has a disenfranchised population of 82,002.
"There is no compelling rationale for this. It doesn't help public safety and it confuses election officials," Mauer said.
Since many people do not realize they lose the right to vote when convicted of a felony in certain states, it is not a deterrent to crime, Mauer said.
"So much is hidden beneath the surface in the courtroom. Very rarely will a judge tell a convict that even after he's served for five years, he can't vote," Mauer said. "It's not a deterrent."
Also, voting can help tie ex-felons back into their communities, making them less likely to commit another crime, Mauer said. People who regain their right to vote are more likely to pay attention to policies and encourage people they know to vote.
"People who are involved with their community are going to be less likely to harm people," Mauer said.
Critics said the main obstacles to regaining the right to vote include inadequate data. Arizona and Nevada do not compile information at all. Lengthy and confusing waiting periods -- Nebraska requires a person to wait 10 years after completing a sentence -- cumbersome processes, arbitrariness created by often changing rules by governors and inappropriate character tests -- asking about alcohol use and character references -- all contribute to the difficulty of voting-rights restoration.
"Regardless of how restrictive policies may be, they need to be transparent. We need to know what the numbers are and what the rationale is," Mauer said.
Florida has the best record of states with "permanent disenfranchisement"; 48,000 people regained their rights since 1998, but this is only because of a lengthy series of lawsuits and raised awareness after the controversy following presidential elections, Mauer said. The next highest was Virginia with 5,043 restorations since 1982.
Only 17 people in Wyoming between 1995 and 2002 regained their rights, and the state did not keep track of restorations after that date, according to the study.
Since 1996 nine states have reformed their regulations, scaling back restrictions, Mauer said.
"This is not a partisan issue, it's a constitutional one," Mauer said. "The Senate majority leader and another key Republican are calling for automatic voting rights after a sentence is served."
While Mauer does not see the bill making it through Congress, he hopes that more states will continue reforms, or at least keep better records.
"We can do this state by state," he said.
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