October 09, 2024
Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images; Sipa USA
A new study from the Sentencing Project found that there are 41,282 people in Pennsylvania not eligible to vote because they are incarcerated on a felony charge.
Nearly 10 million Pennsylvanians are of voting-age, but 41,282 of them won't be able to participate in the November election.
That total represents residents in jail or prison who can't cast a ballot because of a felony conviction, according to a report released Thursday from the Sentencing Project. Experts from five universities compiled data looking at state policies, demographics of incarcerated people and how that compares with historical numbers.
Christopher Uggen, a professor at the University of Minnesota and an author of the report, said he hopes the release of the national data sheds light on the disenfranchisement of imprisoned people.
Pennsylvania and New Jersey are two of 23 states that only bar voting while someone is in prison, meaning people on parole can cast a ballot. Maine and Vermont are the only states that allow people serving a felony sentence the right to vote. The remaining 25 states ban people from voting in prison, while on parole or probation and, in 10 of those states, post-sentence.
In the mid-1970s, the Sentencing Project said there were about 1.2 million Americans not eligible to vote because of incarceration. In the late 2010s, that number was at an all-time high of 5.9 million before it dropped to 4 million in 2024.
In Pennsylvania, 19,131 of those unable to vote are Black — meaning 1.89% of the state's total Black voting-age population aren't eligible to participate in this election — and 4,006 are Latino (0.69%).
In New Jersey, 14,087 incarcerated people aren't eligible to vote because of a felony charge, which is 0.22% of the 6.4 million voting-age population in the state. Of that total, 8,554 are Black (0.99% of the total voting-age Black population in the state) and 2,106 are Latino (0.2%).
In both states, more than 85% of those people who can't vote are men.
"Any kind of disparities that arise in the criminal justice system are also reflected in who can vote," Uggen said. "There's certainly an unevenness here, not just in Pennsylvania, but throughout the United States, so who is affected by these laws is a reflection on who is receiving more punishment."
While 0.41% might not seem like a huge margin, in a swing state like Pennsylvania, it could make all the difference. But it's hard to say which candidate incarcerated people would support. While many are Black men, a demographic that has historically favored Democratic candidates, Uggen noted that former President Donald Trump has a high approval rating among working-class men and incarceration primarily impacts that group.
Michael Wessler, the communications director at the Prison Policy Initiative, also noted that voting impacts future incarceration rates. A large percentage of people in prison are minorities from poorer communities, and that group tends to vote for more rehabilitative policies, while white people lean toward stricter policing and sentencing, he said.
"What you end up getting by disenfranchising those communities, those poorer communities and those communities of color, they have less of a say in government about what policies are pursued and what policies get implemented," Wessler said. "That unfortunately is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy where you pass that policy that's punitive, that locks more people up, therefore fewer people have a say."
Voter disenfranchisement from incarceration can happen even after sentences are served, with former inmates being uncertain about their eligibility or fearful to cast a ballot after hearing about high-profile cases of accidental voter fraud.
In Pennsylvania, incarcerated people are eligible to vote if they're being held during pretrial or serving time for a misdemeanor conviction. But they can have a hard time accessing the identification they need to register, ordering a mail-in ballot or getting stamps for the mail, Wessler said.
Other prisoner advocates have also raised concerns about prison gerrymandering, which is the practice of counting incarcerated people for the census in the district of their prison, not their home communities. But since they can't vote, they're essentially "ghost constituents," said Brianna Remster, an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Villanova University. That means votes of non-incarcerated people in a district with a prison can carry more weight, Remster said, while the inmates aren't getting represented in policy matters.
"They're real people, but they're behind prison walls," Remster said. "Legislators don't view them as their constituency, and their concerns relate to, usually, their districts back home."
Save for complete policy reform that counts the votes of the incarcerated, Remster said another option for change is getting people information about their eligibility. Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia) introduced a bill in 2023 in the state House of Representatives to expand education around voting rights in jails, and fellow lawmakers are calling for the bill to be brought up for a vote.
Changes like this, Remster said, can help with what she views as a crucial issue.
"Without equal representation we don't have a functioning democracy," Remster said. "Large countries, states, cities, whatever level we're talking about, we have to have that representation in order to have a functioning, healthy democracy."
