Felon Disenfranchisement Laws Remove Voting Rights of 1.4 Million Black Men

A Sentencing Project report estimated that by 2000, 1.4 million Black men — 13% of the Black male population — were disenfranchised due to felony convictions, a rate seven times the national average. In Florida, Virginia, and Kentucky, lifetime disenfranchisement for all felons removed voting rights from roughly one in four Black men. The intersection of racially discriminatory prosecutions and disenfranchisement was described by scholars as a modern extension of Reconstruction-era disfranchisem