Christopher Uggen
and Jeff Manza. 2002. "Democratic Contraction? The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United
States." American
Sociological Review 67:777-803.
Abstract
Universal suffrage
is a cornerstone of democratic governance. As levels of criminal punishment
have risen in the United States, however, an ever-larger
number of citizens have lost the right to vote. We ask whether felon
disenfranchisement constitutes a meaningful reversal of the extension of voting
rights by considering its political impact. We examine data from legal sources,
election studies, and inmate surveys to consider two counterfactual conditions:
(1) whether removing disenfranchisement restrictions would have altered the
outcomes of U.S. Senate and presidential elections; and, (2) whether applying
contemporary rates of disenfranchisement to prior elections would have affected
their outcomes. Because felons are drawn disproportionately from the ranks of
racial minorities and the poor, disenfranchisement laws tend to take more votes
from Democratic than from Republican candidates. We find that felon disenfranchisement
played a decisive role in U.S. Senate elections, helping to establish the
Republican Senate majority of the 1990s. Moreover, at least one Republican
presidential victory would have been reversed even if only former felons had
been allowed to vote and at least one Democratic presidential victory would
have been jeopardized had contemporary rates of disenfranchisement prevailed
during earlier periods.