Who Must Pay to Regain the Vote? A 50-State Survey

By Margaret Love and David Schlussel

This report examines the extent to which state reenfranchisement laws consider payment of legal financial obligations (LFOs), including fines, fees, and restitution, in determining whether and when to restore voting rights to people disenfranchised due to a felony conviction. (Our national survey discusses and ranks each state’s general approach to loss and restoration of voting rights based on conviction.) We first published this research in July 2020 during litigation over Florida’s 2018 voting rights ballot initiative, which many expected would restore voting rights to more than a million people disenfranchised because of a felony conviction. However, the initiative was interpreted by Florida’s legislature and supreme court to condition reenfranchisement on payment of all outstanding fines, fees, costs, and restitution, which drastically limited its anticipated reach. A federal district court found this system unconstitutional, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed that conclusion in a 6-4 decision. During the appeal, an amicus brief by the State of Texas, joined by seven other states, asserted that “States across the country have similar rules [to Florida] for felon voting” and that the district court’s holding “called into question the widespread practice” of permanently disenfranchising people who are not able to “pay their debts to society.” As we demonstrated in our original report and amicus brief, few states have laws like Florida’s that indefinitely deny re-enfranchisement based on any unpaid debt related to a disqualifying conviction. This updated report documents each state’s current treatment of unpaid LFOs in regards to voting rights, including developments in California, where voters early this month passed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to those on parole; and Iowa, where the governor in August issued an executive order to restore voting rights after completion of incarceration and supervision, regardless of payment of LFOs. As of this writing, in nearly half the states (21 states), LFOs have no bearing on re-enfranchisement. In most of the others (15 states), regaining the vote is tied to completion of supervision, which may give courts and supervision officials some discretion to delay re-enfranchisement if LFOs have not been paid, but not to deny it permanently. Moreover, officials in many of these “delay” states already must consider ability to pay in determining whether to extend supervision, and officials may consider it in others. In total, 10 states deny the vote to at least some people who have otherwise completed all aspects of their sentence, but still owe LFOs. Of these, only 3 states including Florida have laws mandating indefinite denial of the vote to any person with any unpaid LFOs from a disqualifying conviction, even if the person has completed all non-financial requirements of the sentence, and regardless of ability to pay. An additional 7 states indefinitely deny re-enfranchisement because of LFOs, but only in certain cases. A new Sentencing Project report estimates that 5.2 million Americans remain disenfranchised due to a felony conviction, including an estimated 900,000 Floridians who have otherwise completed their felony sentences, but still owe LFOs; the authors were not able to provide firm estimates on the number of voters disenfranchised on this basis in the other 9 states that do so. * Four states handle reenfranchisement exclusively through a discretionary exercise of constitutional clemency. The governors of 3 of these states currently exercise their clemency power on a broad basis to reenfranchise most individuals who have completed incarceration and supervision time, without regard to payment of LFOs

Washington, DC: Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC)2020. 17p.