Many black men prohibited from voting, study says

Jet, Feb 17, 1997

About 14 percent of Black men cannot vote because they are in prison or because they have been convicted of a felony, according to a new study.

Of a total voting age population of 10.4 million Black men, about 1.46 million have lost their right to vote because of a felony conviction, said the study, conducted by the Sentencing Project in Washington, D.C.

Of those 1.46 million, 950,000 are ineligible to vote because they are in prison or on probation or parole, and 510,000 are permanently barred from voting in 13 states that take away the right to vote for most convicted felons said the study, titled Intended and Unintended Consequences: State Racial Disparities in Imprisonment.

The 13 states that permanently bar all felons from voting are Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming. Felons are prohibited from voting while in prison in 46 states while only Maine, Massachusetts, Utah and Vermont do not bar prison inmates from voting.