Felon Disenfranchisement by State

An estimated five million people nationwide are ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction, according to The Sentencing Project. Of these, three-fourths (3.5 million) are no longer incarcerated.

Felon Disenfranchisement Rates by State in 2004

The map below shows the percentage of the voting age population by state that was ineligible to vote in 2004 due to felony convictions.


View Larger Map

The convicted felon population includes incarcerated felons, as well as probationers, parolees and those who have completed their sentences. But felon disenfranchisement varies widely across states depending on state law. Maine and Vermont allow all felons (including those incarcerated) to vote. Kentucky and Virginia have the most restrictive laws, allowing ex-felons the right to vote only when granted by the state after a special appeal.

The Sentencing Project estimates that nationwide there are about two million disenfranchised African American felons, of whom nearly one million are ex-felons who have completed their sentences.

If you sort on the % African American Disenfranchised 2004 column in the interactive table below, you will see extremely high percentages in many states. Ten states had African American disenfranchisement rates above 15% in 2004. Rates for several of these states (for example, Wyoming) are likely skewed due to correctional facilities with out-of-state inmates who return to their home states after release from prison. But there are others in this group with sizable resident African American populations where skewing is not an issue -- i.e., Virginia, Florida, Delaware, and Alabama.



View Expanded Interactive Table


Current State Policy

Five states --Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, and Rhode Island -- have implemented major policy changes since 2004. The interactive chart below breaks out states according to their general policy of voting rights for felons.



View Interactive Chart

You can review details on policy changes (major and minor) that have occurred since 2004 via annual updates prepared by The Sentencing Project.

A Decade of Reform: Felony Disenfranchisement Policy in the United States (October 2006)

2006 Annual Update

2007 Annual Update

Sources and Additional Information

The charts and maps displayed above are based on data and an interactive map prepared by the The Sentencing Project. Policy changes that have occurred since December 2004 are not reflected in the numbers.

The Sentencing Project data is not completely consistent with data we used to calculate voter registration rates in previous posts. Those maps and charts rely on survey estimates from the Census Bureau's 2004 Current Population Survey, which excludes persons in correctional facilities and halfway houses from the population base. Non-incarcerated disenfranchised felons are included in the CPS, which means that the voter eligible unregistered population is overestimated by the CPS in states where voting rights are not restored to felons upon release from prison.

In addition to the felon disenfranchisement material from The Sentencing Project, information on this important issue is available on web pages developed by the ACLU (2008 toolkit), the Advancement Project, the Brennan Center, MALDEF, NAACP, and the Prison Policy Institute.

African American Voter Registration Rates by State

In a previous chart, we noted that there are over 7 million Latino citizens who are not registered to vote. Nationally, African-American citizens have a much higher voter registration rate than Latino citizens -- 69% to 58%. But at 7.5 million, the unregistered African American population is just as numerous.

The chart below shows that younger African Americans are less likely to be registered to vote than their parents. About 1.7 million college-age African Americans (43%) are not registered.




The map below shows state-by-state voter registration rates (as a percentage of black voting age population) reported by African Americans for the 2004 presidential election. Registration rates range from a low of 49.7% in New York to a high of 87.6% in Missouri.

Click a state on the map to see detailed stats.

African American Voter Registration Rates by State
(percent of the AA voting age population)


View Larger Map

Due to statistical sampling issues, rates for several states with relatively small numbers of African Americans were not calculated by the Census Bureau. These states are shown in white on the map.

After discounting for the higher non-citizen African American population in states such as New York and Florida, there is less interstate variation. Massachusetts has the lowest African-American citizen registered voter rate -- 54.2%.

View Map of African American Registration Rates by State
(percent of citizen voting age population)

Latino Voter Registration Rates by State

You can review similar state-by-state maps depicting Latino voter registration rates via the links below.

View Map of Latino Voter Registration Rates by State

(percent of voting age population)

Just one state on the Latino registration by voting age map -- New Mexico -- has a rate above 50%.

Once non-citizens are removed from the voting age base, Latino voter registration rates improve markedly -- from a low of 33.3% in Tennessee to a high of 76% in Ohio.

View Map of Latino Voter Registration Rates by State
(percent of citizen voting age population)

Non-Hispanic White Voter Registration Rates by State

With over 37 million voting age persons who are not registered to vote, the non-Hispanic white population is still the big enchilada. Voter registration rates are slightly higher across-the-board for whites vis-a-vis African Americans.

Tennessee (64.1%) has the lowest white registered voter rate as a percentage of the white voting age population, while North Dakota is highest (89%).

View Map of Non-Hispanic White Registration Rates by State
(percent of voting age population)

Sources and Additional Information

These maps and charts are based on a spreadsheet (see table 4a) from the Census Bureau website -- Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004. A detailed narrative report released in 2006 can be downloaded here.

This Census Bureau report provides state-level voter registration and citizenship rates for the voting age population by race and age group. The data is compiled from self-reported survey responses to the November 2004 Current Population Survey. Unfortunately, the report does not provide registration data for Native Americans even though they comprise a significant portion of the electorate in several states.

Non-incarcerated disenfranchised felons are included in the CPS, which means that the voter eligible unregistered population is overestimated by the CPS in states where voting rights are not restored to felons upon release from prison. See our next post for details on felon disenfranchisement.

See also web-based state profile voter reports comparing the 2000, 2004, and 2006 elections from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Do you need more specific registration detail for local GOTV efforts? Most of the interactive maps we produced leading up to the 2004 election have voter registration data mapped thematically. Four GOTV map sets -- Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina -- show the unregistered African American population by precinct and include hundreds of printer-ready Adobe maps for canvassing.

Unregistered Latino and Asian-American Citizens

There are about 7 million Latino citizens in the U. S. who are not registered to vote. The table and chart in the figure below show that 5 million of the unregistered Latinos are ages 18 to 44 -- roughly half of the Latino citizen population for that age group.


Over 95% of all Latino citizens who are not registered to vote live in areas defined by the census tracts identified in our previous post. This presents an enormous opportunity and challenge for civic engagement groups working in these areas.

The aggregate number of unregistered Asian-American citizens (3 million) is not as high as the Latino unregistered citizen population, but the percent unregistered is across-the-board higher.


You can get a spreadsheet breaking out voter registration rates by state for citizens of all races and age groups from the Census Bureau website -- Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004. (See tables 4a, 4b, and 4c.)

10,000 Maps Plus

We produced 30 interactive maps and over 10,000 Adobe PDF precinct maps leading up to the 2004 general election.

Since then, we've updated the interactive maps with precinct-level data for California, Georgia, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin (plus Maine and Michigan townships).

We'll add more states where we can find statewide precinct-level geographic databases that match the 2004 election results, but in most cases this is not possible. Some additional states may become available as the 2008 election approaches.

Note that several other state map applications include 2002 through early 2004 precinct/precinct proxy voter data -- Arkansas, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oklahoma.

We've updated the interactive maps with party affiliation maps for Congress and state legislatures to reflect the 2006 election.

Finally, you can now see a Google Map of the area you are viewing on an interactive map. (Google Maps did not exist at the time of the 2004 election.)

For example, click on the graphic below to use a Google Map as an entry viewport to the Georgia GOTV Mapper. Click on FairData (This Win.) or FairData (New Win.) to open the thematic interactive map.



You can switch back and forth by clicking on the balloon icons (representing various zoom levels) beneath the map image on the FairData interactive map.

10,000 Maps

To access the interactive maps select a state from the sidebar.

Over 9,000 high detail "zoomable" printer-ready, PDA compatible, street-level focus precinct maps are also available for Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina. Depending on the state, the maps show block-level estimates of unregistered persons of voting age or unregistered plus inactive voters.

In addition, community-wide Adobe maps can be downloaded for about 1,600 localities in those eight states and a dozen or so other states where we have statewide registration or turnout data -- Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Depending on the state, these maps show precinct or neighborhood-level estimates of unregistered persons of voting age or unregistered plus inactive voters.

Just for fun, we've added Adobe maps showing Bush-Gore by precinct for the same set of localities in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. Similar Adobe maps are available for the 2002 Senate contests in North Carolina and Georgia and the 2002 Wisconsin Attorney General race.

Also, street-level census data Adobe maps are available for selected precincts in Oregon and Wisconsin counties, where we have been unable to obtain the registered voter lists.

These interactive and Adobe maps can help you marshal scarce resources for door-to-door voter registration and target areas for transporting voters to the polls.

In addition to the default voter registration maps, each interactive map application includes maps showing neighborhood-level detail on the following:

-- Median Household Income (1999)
-- Population Below Poverty
-- Population Under 18 Below Poverty
-- Female Householder (single-parent) with own children
-- Percent Black (single-race, all ages)
-- Percent Latino (any race, all ages)
-- Percent Native American (single- race, all ages)
-- Percent Asian (single-race, all ages)
-- Housing Tenure (renters and homeowners)
-- Median Home Value (by census tract)
-- 18-64 Limited English-Speaking Ability (Spanish speakers only)
-- Percent Undercount
-- Households without a vehicle
-- Population 25 and over without a high school degree
-- Foreign Born Non-citizen Population (any race or ethnicity, all ages)
-- Population Ages 15 to 24