In the United States, the majority of people have the right to vote and will never know what it's like to not have the rights to do so. However, the right to vote is being challenged by the rapid growth in incarceration rates within the criminal justice system. In most states, election laws ban felons and even ex-felons from voting. According to Manza, Brooks, and Uggen (2004), it is estimated that between 4.1 and 4.7 American citizens are disenfranchised or deprived of the right to vote, due to a past or current conviction (p. 175). Even after the have served their time, the criminal justice system makes the process of rights restoration nearly impossible to complete. There is currently a great amount of research being conducted on the civil rights of a felon. Of these, the most widely tested hypothesis is that the number of felons that are …show more content…
First, the immensity of disenfranchisement varies from state to state. Some impose no limits while others, like Florida, extend disenfranchisement past a completion of a sentence. Research has found that these disparities create an effect on voter turnout and partisan election outcomes. Secondly, research has found that the families and friends of felons who can't vote are more likely to not vote either. Disenfranchisement has a big effect on others, not just felons and …show more content…
This shows that voter turnout doesn't just lay in the hands of those who broke the law. It goes so much deeper. As claimed by E. Burmila (2017), felon disenfranchisement has the potential to impact elections (p.86), however, it brings up questions of rights, fairness, and equal treatment in a country founded off of democratic traditions and