The Marshall Project

After Years Behind Bars, These Folks Are #FreeToVote

Here are their stories.

This United States is still a long way from granting incarcerated people the right to vote, and polls show the idea is unpopular. But the thinking on who deserves these rights is starting to change.

Earlier this year, the District of Columbia granted voting rights to people in prison, joining a handful of states that allow incarcerated people to cast ballots from behind bars.

Once out of prison, people convicted of felonies were denied the vote for years in many states. But in the past two years alone, more than a dozen states reconsidered their felony, often restoring voting rights to people on probation and parole or clarifying the rights restoration process.

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