LOD: Map of Ex-Felon Voting Rights

The ACLU has produced a graphic map that illustrates the wide variety of state laws that allow (or don’t allow) people with felony convictions to register and vote. An estimated 5.3 million Americans are currently disfranchised due to excessively restrictive laws. The voting rights of people with the same sentence for the same crime are treated drastically different depending on where they live. For example, 13 states (nearly all in the northern half of the US) allow a person to vote while serving probation, but 11 states (mostly in the southern half) have very restrictive laws, including four that never let a person with a felony conviction vote again. In NC, a citizen can register like anyone else after they have served their full sentence, including probation or parole. It doesn’t matter where they were convicted, and they don’t need any special document; once they leave the correctional system’s supervision, they’ve paid their debt to society and we want them back, fully engaged as citizens. Democracy NC has posters and flyers available for helping educate people about the automatic restoration of their voting rights.