Report :: Let 'Em In and Get 'Em In: How...

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Report :: Let 'Em In and Get 'Em In: How to Give More People the ...
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Let 'Em In and Get 'Em In:
How to Give More People the Right -and the Reason- to Vote
By Frank Askin
October 2004
Any way you look at it, participation in the cornerstone activity of democracy-casting votes
for candidates-is going down.
This is usually expressed in terms of turnout, which refers to what percentage of those
people registered to vote actually did so in a given year. But turnout figures mask a deeper
chasm between those who vote and those who do not. Not counted at all in turnout figures
are people who are old enough to vote but have not registered to do so, as well as those who
are old enough to vote but are ineligible. An analogy can be made to unemployment
statistics: they only count people who are actively looking for work, ignoring those who
have simply given up.
In New Jersey over the past decade, participation by the overall voting age population is
down. The same is true for the eligible population (those old enough to vote and not barred
by virtue of being felons, ex-felons or non-citizens). And the percentage of eligible voters
actually registered to vote is down. Indeed, adding together those who could vote, but do
not, and those who cannot in many years produces a majority of the voting age population.
Using gubernatorial elections as a benchmark, some 46.5 percent of eligible voters cast
votes in 1993; 43.75 percent in 1997; and only about 41 percent in 2001. In presidential
elections, the turnout of potential voters in New Jersey declined from 62 percent in 1992 to
58.8 percent in 2000.
So wide is the disparity between who votes and who could vote that there is probably not a
single elected official around today in the whole land-let alone New Jersey-who has ever
received a vote from the true majority of his or her constituents.
In the 2000 presidential election, for example, George W. Bush received votes from 24.5
percent of the voting age population in the United States and from 27.77 percent of the
eligible voters. In New Jersey, President Bush received the votes of 23.7 percent of the
eligible electorate, while Al Gore received votes from 33 percent. Gore won by a lot, but
neither candidate came close to receiving a majority of all the people who could have voted.
Clearly, a sizeable portion of the population is deciding not to be part of the decisionmaking process.
This is not new information to aware professionals. Voter "apathy" is a perennial topic at
political gatherings. But with all of the hand-wringing and head scratching, the numbers
keep declining. The problem is so blatant-and some remedies so obvious-that it almost
makes one think that those with the power to change the situation are satisfied with things
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just the way they are. After all, why should politicians who have been successful under the
present system want to change the rules to broaden participation with who-knows-what
consequences?
This is a problem too serious to ignore. While someone will always win and someone else
will lose no matter how low the voter turnout, the reality is that the current trend has
implications for the functioning of democracy. If nothing else, it raises questions about how
responsive candidates and office holders need to be to the needs of the many when they
know they can get elected with only the votes of the few.
This paper is intended to provoke discussion of these issues. If we were really serious about
involving more people in the electoral process, what steps would we take? What lessons
could we learn from other states and other countries which have been more successful in
expanding the electorate?
Having this kind of discussion is very much in keeping with history and tradition in the
United States. Ever since the founding of the republic, when only property-owning white
males were allowed to vote, Americans have been debating these issues. Looked at from
that perspective, we have come a long way. African-Americans, women and people at the
bottom of the economic ladder have over the course of the decades been accorded the right
to vote. But this is no time to rest on our laurels. The question now is how we expand both
eligibility and turnout to make the process more credible and appealing to the public-and
make those hard-won rights really count.
In the wake of the 2000 presidential election and controversy over how and whether votes
were counted, Congress passed and the President signed the Help America Vote Act
(HAVA). Some aspects of the HAVA are designed to assure a more accurate account of the
votes that are cast, and to make voting more accessible to people with disabilities or who do
not speak English. But they are not expected to have a large impact on voter turnout.
Similarly, reform proposals dealing with the role that money plays in politics might one day
lead to fairer and more honest elections, and perhaps, though not necessarily, provide wider
electoral choices and broader participation. But there is no way to be sure they will happen.
In the end, while HAVA and campaign finance reform are part of the answer, other
meaningful steps need to be taken to more directly attack the turnout issue by making the
system far more open and inviting.
So here are a few modest proposals with which to get discussion started. Some may have a
better chance of being adopted in the short term than others. But all involve challenging the
status quo and asking those who participate in the system, and those who don't, to think in
new ways and promote change.
ALLOW ELECTION DAY VOTER REGISTRATION
Doing away with New Jersey's requirement that persons must register 29 days in advance of
an election or not be allowed to vote until the following year is probably the single most
specific step that could be taken to substantially increase voter participation. Seven states
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today allow voter registration on Election Day: Maine, Minnesota, Idaho, New Hampshire,
Wisconsin, Wyoming and North Dakota. In those states, voter participation is, on average,
9.7 percent higher than in New Jersey.
Pre-registration was introduced in parts of this country as early as 1800, but did not become
commonplace until the beginning of the 20th century, and was not a fixture until 1928. The
history of voter-registration laws and their impact is too large a topic to be discussed here,
but the curious can refer to the classic work of Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven,
Why Americans Don't Vote. Suffice to say, the experience of states that allow Election Day
registration seems rather conclusive on the question of the extent to which pre-registration
requirements suppress voter turnout.
Opponents of Election Day registration raise the specter of voter fraud as the reason to keep
the current system. But they can cite few instances of it in states where Election Day
registration exists. In fact, a 2002 study conducted by the nonprofit organization Demos
found no problem with fraud in those states permitting it.
Arguably, the real fraud is the disfranchisement of people who for a variety of reasons in
this highly mobile society do not register until it is too late. According to a
Star-Ledger/Eagleton poll, 32 percent of the unregistered in New Jersey said that they had
recently moved and simply didn't get around to it. This is not surprising in a nation in which
16.8 percent of the population relocates each year. For Americans between the ages of 20
and 24, the figure is 35.6 percent.
For more than 20 years, I have supervised a Voter Assistance Project with my Rutgers Law
Students at the Essex County Courthouse each General Election. The students provide
representation for persons seeking orders from a judge to be allowed to vote because they
have been turned away at the polling place. The overwhelming majority of cases have
involved people who did not register (or re-register) before the deadline. Many of them had
moved recently. Others were newly eligible voters who had paid little attention to electoral
matters until a week or two before the election and then got interested-only to discover that
the registration deadline had passed.
Not surprisingly, surveys show that many potential voters do not tune in to electoral debate
until the last two weeks before Election Day. A Star-Ledger/Eagleton poll conducted two
weeks before the 2001 gubernatorial election found that only 9 percent of the electorate was
following the campaign "very closely."
The pre-registration problem was partially addressed by passage in the mid-1990s of the
Federal Motor Voter Act, which, among other things, required states to allow registered
voters who had moved within their county of previous registration to cast a ballot at the
polling place for their new location. Those who understood their rights, went to the proper
polling place and encountered officials who were educated in the new law, were allowed to
vote by means of a provisional ballot that was counted once their previous registration was
verified by county election officials. But this was of no benefit to those who had moved
from county to county within a state or from state to state.
"Motor Voter" also required states to provide voter-registration opportunities at motor
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vehicle and other public agencies. However, in apparent violation of the federal law, New
Jersey DMV did not actually include voter-registration information on the driver's license
application itself. Instead, it was left to DMV agents to ask applicants if they wished to
register to vote, an obligation which can easily be honored in the breach.
By 2006, at the latest, every state is required under HAVA to create a statewide voter
registration system, which in New Jersey would replace the current system of registration
information being maintained only at the county level. Once the statewide system is
operating, there is no excuse for not extending the provisional ballot option to any
previously registered New Jersey voter who moves anywhere in the state-because
verification would be a simple task. This would, in effect, create Election Day registration
for all prior-registered New Jersey voters. While this might delay final election results in
close races where many provisional ballots might not be confirmed until after Election Day,
that is a relatively small price to pay for expanding democratic participation.
But this still would not provide a remedy for two groups of people: those relocating from
one state to another and newly eligible voters. For them, the cure is Election Day
registration. And, again, statewide computerized voting lists are key. With such lists and the
availability of the provisional ballot subject to verification of registration, objections based
on potential fraud lose credibility.
That leaves only opposition to Election Day registration that appears to come from leaders
of strong political organizations in both parties. Apparently, many believe, political
organizations prefer to deal with known constituencies they can target with a maximum of
advance information concerning individual voting patterns. New voters without a political
history are wild cards who might shake things up on Election Day. Indeed, independent
Jesse Ventura has long maintained that Election Day registrants provided the margin for his
upset gubernatorial victory in Minnesota in 1998.
BROADEN ELIGIBILITY
While the over-18 population in New Jersey was over 6.3 million according to the 2000
Census, the voting-eligible population was significantly smaller-because not everyone over
18 is allowed to register and vote. The two major disfranchised classes are persons serving
sentences for crime and non-citizens.
While the figures are not as drastic as in some states, there are about 115,000 convicted
felons ineligible to vote under New Jersey law. Fewer than 30,000 of them are actually
incarcerated. The rest are living in the community on parole or probation.
While seven states, mostly in the South, have virtual lifetime disfranchisement of ex-felons,
others have practices less restrictive than New Jersey. Maine and Vermont (as well as
Canada, pursuant to a recent court ruling) allow even incarcerated felons to vote. Another
16 states allow offenders to vote as soon as they are released from prison. Those states are:
Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana,
New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Utah.
The District of Columbia, New York, Connecticut, California and Colorado permit
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probationers to vote but not parolees. Adding 70,000 probationers and 15,000 parolees to
the eligibility list would expand the potential New Jersey electorate by a bit more than 1.5
percent.
Felon disfranchisement in New Jersey has a long and questionable history. Soon after the
Revolutionary War, convicted felons were precluded by statute from testifying in court. The
state's 1844 constitution provided that persons who were not allowed to testify in court
could not vote either. When the Legislature repealed the ban on testimony, the courts still
held that convicted felons could not vote. In the 1947 constitution, Article 2, Para. 7
specifically authorized the Legislature to disfranchise anyone convicted of an indictable
offense.
The Legislature then adopted a patchwork statute disfranchising only some felons. That
statute was held unconstitutional by a federal court in 1970 because it provided no rational
basis for allowing certain classes of felons to vote but not others. As a result, the Legislature
decided to disfranchise all felons until they had fully completed their obligation to the
criminal justice system.
The case for disfranchisement of probationers and parolees is elusive. Almost all modern
criminologists seem to agree that the only purpose behind felon disfranchisement is
punishment; yet they also just about unanimously agree that once a felon is released from
incarceration, public policy regarding how to treat offenders properly changes from one of
punishment to rehabilitation and re-entry into society. The New Jersey Supreme Court
declared as far back as 1982 that "inmates will have presumably satisfied all punitive
aspects of their sentences when they become eligible for parole." And in 2003, the
American Bar Association went on record in favor of allowing parolees and probationers to
vote. The new ABA policy holds that "jurisdictions should not impose ... deprivation of the
right to vote, except during confinement." A bill that would restore the right to vote to those
on parole or probation was approved by an Assembly committee in 2003 but never taken up
by the entire lower house.
The case for re-enfranchising ex-felons is made more compelling by widespread recognition
that racial profiling and other discriminatory aspects of the criminal justice system make it
so that felon disfranchisement has a hugely disparate impact on the voting power of the
state's minority communities. This impact is far out of proportion to the propensity of
minority citizens to commit crimes. Every branch of New Jersey government has now
recognized that African-Americans and Hispanics are investigated, arrested, prosecuted and
sentenced (and thus disfranchised) in disproportionate numbers as a result of police
targeting.
This phenomenon has been further exacerbated by the "war on drugs," which has caused a
huge increase in New Jersey's jail population over the past 20 years that consists largely of
minorities. Because drug arrests generally do not involve victim-specific crimes (such as
murder, rape, robbery), they often result from police targeting. As state Supreme Court
Justice Peter Verniero reported when he was Attorney General, "The fact that arrest rates for
whites was comparatively low does not mean that white motorists are less likely to be
transporting drugs, but that they were less likely to be suspected of being drug traffickers in
the first place and thus less likely to be subjected to probing investigative tactics designed to
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confirm suspicions of criminal activity."
Even if New Jersey continues to disfranchise parolees and probationers, there is no reason
the state should not take more active steps to restore such persons to the voting rolls as soon
as they are released from legal constraint. Many convicted felons in New Jersey are under
the impression that they are disfranchised for life. I even get calls from lawyers inquiring
whether persons released from parole or probation may register to vote. Such confusion is
not surprising given the fact that so much publicity has been given of late to the situations in
Florida and other states with lifetime restrictions.
New Jersey's Parole Board and Probation Department should immediately take steps to
inform persons being released from the system that they are entitled to vote, and should
instruct their agents to provide registration forms to their former charges.
In a similar vein, county jail officials should be required to notify pre-trial detainees and
other persons in their custody pending trial they have a right to vote by absentee ballot, and
should make such ballot applications readily available.
The case for enfranchising some non-citizens to vote is less clear, but not insignificant.
Until 1928, when the practice was finally abandoned in the face of a growing xenophobic
movement, a number of states allowed some alien voting. During the Civil War, the practice
was encouraged, as voting in an election made the person eligible for the draft. Even today,
at least one municipality in the United States, Takoma Park, Md., permits all permanent
residents over the age of 18 to vote in local elections. In New York City, Chicago and
Cambridge, Mass., non-citizens are allowed to vote in school board elections.
A national movement has recently sprung up to permit permanent resident aliens to vote, at
least in state-based elections. Opponents insist there is time enough to enfranchise such
persons when they have completed all of the steps necessary to become citizens. According
to the latest available figures (1996), there were 462,000 legal permanent alien residents in
New Jersey, about half of whom had resided long enough to apply for naturalization. Even
allowing just the latter group to vote would significantly expand the eligible state electorate.
REMOVE BARRIERS TO THIRD PARTIES
New Jersey is the only state in the nation in which an alternative party never achieved
official political party status during the entire 20th century.
Access to the ballot itself is not especially restrictive. A candidate for Governor, for
example, needs only 800 signatures from registered voters on a petition to be allowed to
run. But that in itself does not provide party status. Party status means such things as:
competition for a prominent spot on the ballot; the opportunity to have a state-funded
primary election to choose and showcase candidates; the ability to elect official state,
county and municipal committees which can make unlimited financial contributions to their
party's candidates and provide volunteer staffing and assistance; and the right to participate
in local boards of election which administer the operation of elections under law.
Thanks to an Appellate Division decision in 2001, members of minor parties may at least
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now register their party preference on the official voter-registration rolls, which were
formerly limited to Democrats and Republicans. But the statute governing party recognition
is so onerous-requiring that a prospective party obtain 10 percent of the statewide vote for
General Assembly seats in the most recent election-as to be unattainable.
Since a third party seldom runs legislative candidates in more than a handful of districts,
obtaining an aggregate of 10 percent of the vote in 80 separate contests is next to
impossible. Thus, even though Reform Party candidate for president Ross Perot in 1992
received more than 15 percent of the votes cast for president in New Jersey his party was
unable to qualify. In contrast, New York State affords official party status to any party that
receives 50,000 votes for its gubernatorial candidate, a far easier hurdle to clear and one
made even less difficult by allowance in that state of fusion candidacies, where a minor
party endorses and places under its name on the ballot one of the major party candidates.
The time has clearly come to liberalize the definition of "political party" in Title 19 of New
Jersey law, and make the rules more consistent with those of the other 49 states-none of
which has as unreachable a requirement as New Jersey's. If, for example, the standard for
qualifying as a party were 50,000 votes cast for Governor, Libertarian candidate Murray
Sabrin would easily have qualified his party in 1997. A standard of attaining 3 percent of the
vote in any election held statewide would have qualified the Reform Party in 1992 and the
Green Party in 2000 based on Ralph Nader's presidential vote.
Providing a more level playing field on which alternative parties could compete would
certainly broaden electoral discourse and give voters more options-even if just for
registering a protest vote because neither major party candidate inspired them. Allowing for
fusion politics also could broaden participation by providing a rallying point for potential
voters who would rather not be identified with the Democratic or Republican Parties and
whose strong ideological positions could help force major party candidates to deal more in
issues and substance than now is the case.
In fusion states, a candidate can appear on the ballot of more than one party. Thus in New
York the Working Families Party or the Right to Life Party can make a choice as to whether
to run its own candidate for an office or to endorse one of the major party candidates and
allow that person to run on that party's line. The votes a candidate receives on each of the
ballot lines on which his or her name appears are added together. This obviously enhances
the stature of a minor party if it can demonstrate that the winner owes election to votes it
received from the party's supporters and can help to encourage disaffected voters to get
more involved in the system. Whether a third party chooses to run its own candidate or
endorse someone else's, the potential impact on the outcome can attract more people to the
polls.
Fusion presently exists in New York and a few other states. But New Jersey law does not
permit it; and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled several years ago in a Minnesota case that
states are not required under the federal Constitution to allow it.
EXPAND VOTER CHOICE
How many times have non-voters been heard to declare: "My vote doesn't matter?" At
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which point the declarant will be reminded of an election that was won or lost by a single
vote. But the truth is that, much more often than not, in our winner-take-all, "firstpast-the-post" electoral system, voting sometimes really doesn't matter because the
overwhelming majority of electoral districts in our state and country are one-party districts.
For example, there are 40 state legislative districts in New Jersey, each of which elects one
Senator and two members of the General Assembly. In the two elections since the most
recent state legislative redistricting (2001 and 2003), 33 of those districts elected
representatives of only one party. That is, in the two elections, 18 districts elected only
Democrats and 15 elected only Republicans. And, in few of those districts did any loser
come within 10 percent of the winner. Arguably, in those 33 districts the votes of the
supporters of the unsuccessful candidates really didn't matter, much less the votes of
supporters of third party or independent candidates.
The situation is much the same in federal elections. In the 13 U.S. House contests in the
state in 2002, the closest challenger received less than 42 percent of the vote, again
demonstrating that supporters of the minority party in any district had little incentive to
vote.
Here are three proposals for making elections more competitive and giving voters a stronger
incentive to participate:
Instant Runoff Voting
Under the current winner-take-all system, which by its very operation discourages third
party competition, people who are unmoved by either of the major candidates, but still
choose to vote, must confront the lesser-evil dilemma. Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) helps fix
that. It allows the voter two "bites at the apple" by transferring the votes cast for lesser
candidates to the voter's second choice if no candidate receives a majority on the first
go-round. Had IRV been in effect in 2000, in all likelihood many who voted for Ralph
Nader would have listed Al Gore as a second choice, and many who voted for Patrick
Buchanan would have listed George W. Bush as the alternate.
This solves the dilemma of Nader or Buchanan supporters who feared that by voting for
their favorite candidate they will contribute to the election of their least-preferred candidate.
IRV has become increasingly popular in other countries and has recently been adopted in
several U.S. jurisdictions, including the city of San Francisco for local elections. It would
certainly make elections more interesting and competitive, giving more incentive to
participate for voters who see little difference between the Democrats and Republicans.
More Competitive Districts
With modern technology, political gerrymandering-drawing district in lines that advantage
one party over another-has become almost an exact science. In some states, things have
gotten so out of hand that just about any time one party grabs control of both houses of the
legislature and the governor's office, it decides it's time to realign both state and
congressional legislative districts in order to maximize its own advantage. In New Jersey,
where political control has tended to shift back and forth (and where the state constitution
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allows redistricting only once a decade), politicians seem basically content to fix
congressional districts mainly to protect incumbents, leaving very few competitive districts
at all.
Congressional and state legislative districts are drawn, under constitutional mandate in New
Jersey, by apportionment commissions composed of an equal number of members from the
Democratic and Republican parties plus an additional member whose appointment is
controlled by the state Supreme Court. (For state legislative districting, the Chief Justice
appoints a tie-breaker if the bipartisan body cannot agree. For congressional districting, the
two sides each nominate an independent member who has held neither state nor party office
for the previous five years) This system is vastly superior to that in most states. But it still
allows room for political partisanship. Because of the tight time frame for action, the neutral
arbiter is largely constrained to choosing a plan offered by one of the parties, either of
which is likely to be highly partisan.
The alternative is for the members from both parties simply to accommodate each other's
respective interests, which often leads to an agreement to protect incumbents and maintain
the status quo.
To really encourage more competitive races that might, in turn, arouse more voter interest, it
would be worthwhile for New Jersey to consider adopting the Iowa model, which assigns
the process to a completely nonpartisan commission. It is instructive that of the 35 U.S.
House districts identified by political scientists as swing districts in 2002, four were in
Iowa, which has only five congressional seats.
Weighted Voting
Perhaps the most effective-and most controversial-idea to bring disaffected voters into the
system would be some sort of weighted voting, or modified proportional representation,
system. Under such a regimen, minority interests are guaranteed some modicum of success,
encouraging participation by those who otherwise feel they have no realistic vote of electing
representatives of their choice.
There are too many variations to discuss in detail here, but one is exemplified by a bill
which has languished for years in Congress. It would repeal the requirement that members
of the House be elected from single-member districts-so long as minority representation
would be guaranteed. For example, where gerrymandering now allows a dominant party to
create three contiguous districts, each drawn to give its supporters a 55 percent majority in
each, a legislature might create a three-member district but allow each voter to select just
one candidate. In this situation the 45 percent minority would stand a much better chance,
by pooling its votes, of electing one of the three members from that district.
This would not do much for minor parties, but it would at least provide incentive for
supporters of the less populous major party to have a say in the outcome. Such
apportionment also helps racial and ethnic minorities gain representation in a jurisdiction
where its members are too spread out to be able to win election in a single-member district.
CONCLUSION
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None of these proposals alone is likely to make a radical change in electoral politics or
remedy all of the problems that are both caused by voter apathy and disaffection and in turn
are causes of that apathy. But each offers some opportunity to more than spice up the
electoral season and bring into the fold potential voters who, because of legal impediments
or personal disillusionment, are part of the steady erosion in political participation. Such a
turnaround can only be good for democratic rule.
STATE REGISTRATION DEADLINES
State
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Last Day to Register for Current Year's Election
Alabama
10 days before election
Alaska
30 days
Arizona
29 days
Arkansas
30 days
California
29 days
Connecticut
14 days
Delaware
20 days before general election; 21 days before primary election
Florida
29 days
Georgia
Fifth Monday before election
Hawaii
30 days
Idaho
Election Day
Illinois
28 days before general election; 29 days before primary election
Indiana
29 days
Iowa
10 days
Kansas
15 days
Kentucky
28 days
Louisiana
30 days
Maine
Election Day
Maryland
21 days
Massachusetts
20 days
Michigan
30 days
Minnesota
Election Day
Mississippi
30 days
Missouri
28 days
Montana
30 days
Nebraska
Second Friday before election
Nevada
Fifth Saturday before election
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New Hampshire Election Day
New Jersey
29 days
New Mexico
28 days
New York
25 days
North Carolina 25 days
North Dakota
State has no voter registration
Ohio
25 days
Oklahoma
25 days
Oregon
21 days
Pennsylvania
30 days
Rhode Island
30 days
South Carolina 30 days
South Dakota
15 days
Tennessee
30 days
Texas
30 days
Utah
20 days
Vermont
Second Saturday before election
Virginia
29 days
Washington
15 days
West Virginia
30 days
Wisconsin
Election Day
Wyoming
Election Day
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures
THRESHOLDS FOR THIRD PARTIES
State
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Standard
Last Met
Alabama
20% of vote in any statewide election
2000
Alaska
3% of vote for Gov.1
2002
Arizona
5% of vote for Pres. or Gov.2
2002
Arkansas
3% of vote for Pres. or Gov.
1996
California
2% of voter turnout, any statewide
2002
Colorado
1% of vote in any statewide election3
2002
Connecticut
2002
Delaware
Registration of .05%
2002
Florida
File list if party officers
2002
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Georgia
1% of reg. voters any statewide election
2002
Hawaii
Run in 3 elections
2002
Idaho
Run 3 candidates
2002
Illinois
1996
Indiana
2% of votes for Secretary of State
2002
Iowa
2000
Kansas
2002
Kentucky
2% of vote for Pres.
1996
Louisiana
5% of vote for Pres.
1996
Maine
5% of vote for Pres. or Gov., either of last 2 elections
2002
Maryland
2000
Massachusetts
3% of vote in any statewide election4
2002
Michigan
1% of Secretary of State winner's vote
2002
Minnesota
5% of vote in any statewide election, either of last 2 elections
2002
Mississippi
Must be organized
2002
Missouri
2% of vote for any statewide office, either of last 2 elections
2002
Montana
5% of Gov's winning vote, either of last 2 elections
2002
Nebraska
5% of vote for any statewide office
2002
Nevada
1% of Congress vote
2002
New Hampshire 4% of vote for Gov. or US Senator
1996
New Jersey
10% of Assembly candidates' votes
1913
New Mexico
5% of vote for Pres.5
2002
New York
50,000 votes for Gov.
2002
North Carolina 10% of vote for Pres. or Gov.
1968
North Dakota
1996
Ohio
1996
Oklahoma
1996
Oregon
1% of Congress vote
2002
Pennsylvania
Registration of 15%
Never6
Rhode Island
5% of vote for Pres. or Gov., either of last 2 elections
2000
South Carolina Must run 1 candidate
2002
South Dakota
2.5% of vote for Gov.
1994
Tennessee
1968
Texas
5% of vote for any statewide office or 2% for Gov
2000
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Utah
2% of Congress vote
2000
Vermont
Must be organized in 10 towns
2002
Virginia
1994
Washington
2000
West Virginia
1% of vote for Gov.
2000
Wisconsin
2002
Wyoming
2% of vote for Congress, Gov. or Sec. of State
2002
Source: Richard Winger, editor, Ballot Access News
footnotes:
1- Or registration totaling 3% of last Gov. vote
2- Or registration of .6667%
3- Or have 1,000 registered voters
4- Or have 1% registration
5- Also must have .3% registration
6- Under previous rules, third party last qualified in 1986
VOTING RIGHTS OF FELONS
State
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In Prison On Probation On Parole
Alabama *
N
N
N
Alaska
N
N
N
Arizona **
N
N
N
Arkansas
N
N
N
California
N
Y
N
Colorado
N
Y
N
Connecticut
N
Y
N
Delaware **
N
N
N
Florida *
N
N
N
Georgia
N
N
N
Hawaii
N
Y
Y
Idaho
N
N
N
Illinois
N
Y
Y
Indiana
N
Y
Y
Iowa *
N
N
N
Kansas
N
N
N
Kentucky *
N
N
N
11/9/10 12:41 PM
Louisiana
N
N
N
Maine
Y
Y
Y
Maryland **
N
N
N
Massachusetts
N
Y
Y
Michigan
N
Y
Y
Minnesota
N
N
N
Mississippi *
N
N
N
Missouri
N
N
N
Montana
N
Y
Y
Nebraska *
N
N
N
Nevada
N
N
N
New Hampshire
N
Y
Y
New Jersey
N
N
N
New Mexico
N
N
N
New York
N
Y
N
North Carolina
N
N
N
North Dakota
N
Y
Y
Ohio
N
Y
Y
Oklahoma
N
N
N
Oregon
N
Y
Y
Pennsylvania
N
Y
Y
Rhode Island
N
N
N
South Carolina
N
N
N
South Dakota
N
Y
Y
Tennessee **
N
N
N
Texas
N
N
N
Utah
N
Y
Y
Vermont
Y
Y
Y
Virginia *
N
N
N
Washington **
N
N
N
West Virginia
N
N
N
Wisconsin
N
N
N
Wyoming **
N
N
N
Sources: Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project
* In these states, felons are barred from voting even upon
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11/9/10 12:41 PM
completion of their obligation to the criminal justice system,
though Alabama, Kentucky and Virginia have taken steps to reform
the process of restoring voting rights
** In these states, some felons can have their voting rights
restored and others cannot, the latter category usually being
those who have committed multiple offenses
Frank Askin is Professor of Law and Robert E. Knowlton Scholar at Rutgers-Newark Law
School. He entered Rutgers School of Law-Newark in 1963 as a student, after an earlier
career as a journalist-and has been there ever since. He was appointed to the faculty upon
his graduation with highest honors in 1966.
In 1970, he established the Constitutional Litigation Clinic as part of the law school's
curriculum. Under his guidance, the clinic litigated the first police surveillance cases in the
nation, battled the FBI over the investigation and maintenance of files on two precocious
New Jersey high school students who corresponded with "the wrong persons," defended
affirmative action programs up to the United States Supreme Court, challenged the New
Jersey State Police for stopping and searching "long-haired travelers" on the state's
highways, argued for the right of the homeless to vote and to access public library facilities
and protected the right of grassroots advocacy groups to take their messages door to door
and to privately owned shopping malls.
Professor Askin has been a member of the National Board of the American Civil Liberties
Union since 1969 and has been one of the ACLU's four general counsels since 1976. In
1986, he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress in New Jersey's 11th
District. He was attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of CAPP v. Farmer, which established
the right of members of alterative parties to register as such on the voter lists.
New Jersey Policy Perspective is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in 1997
to conduct research and analysis on state issues. Our goal is a state where everyone can
achieve to his or her full potential in an economy that offers a widely shared, rising standard
of living.
This page URL:
http://njpp.org/rpt_askin.html
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