New Report: 85,000 Kansans with Past Felonies Currently Eligible to Vote
“The 71,000 Gap” of eligible voters who remain unregistered demonstrates the devastating impact of misinformation and a lack of support for this voting population
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 31, 2024
CONTACT: Esmie Tseng, Communications Director, ACLU of Kansas, [email protected]
OVERLAND PARK, KAN. - A new report from the ACLU of Kansas finds that a shockingly large number of Kansans—nearly 85,000, or 1 in every 35 people in the state, are returning citizens who are eligible to vote. These individuals have completed sentences for past felonies, including being discharged from any probation or parole, and are eligible to register and vote under Kansas law.
Among this group, only 14,147 have actually registered to vote, for a registration rate of 16.6%, far below the registration rate of 71% among the state’s general population.
“We found a gap of 71,000 Kansans who are returning citizens and eligible to vote, but who remain unregistered and unincluded in our democratic process,” said Rashane Hamby, Policy Director of the ACLU of Kansas. “This demonstrates just how rampant and devastating the impact of misinformation, structural challenges, and lack of targeted outreach have been on about 2% of the state’s population.
The report, “Unheard Voices: Restoring Voting Rights to Returning Citizens to Build and Inclusive, Accountable Democracy in Kansas,” comes out of an ambitious and unprecedented data project—it is the first of its kind in Kansas and one of only a handful of such projects in the entire nation. Through collaboration with Free Our Vote, a nonprofit devoted to reincorporating returning citizens into the electorate through the provision of empirical data and evidence, the project created a comprehensive, statewide dataset of individuals with felony convictions dating from the period 1990-2024 through multiple sources, including the Kansas District Courts, Kansas Department of Corrections, and county-level records. All data involved in the project came from public records, but ones which have not previously been aggregated, cross-referenced, cleaned for accuracy, or analyzed in this way.
“Chronic misinformation, systemic conditions, and policy barriers have left thousands of Kansans unheard. Their voices are absent from the democratic process, contradicting the values of equality and representation that are central to the state’s identity as the Free State,” said Micah Kubic, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas. “Democracy is at its core the idea that each of us counts and has a say in our decision-making as a community. And in 2024, the absence of returning Kansans from our electoral process impoverishes our democracy, government accountability, policy outcomes that impact all of us.”
In addition to the surprisingly high number of impacted Kansans, the report also reveals key findings on demographic disparities:
- 79% of returning citizens who are eligible but unregistered voters are men, compared to 50.24% of the general Kansas population. Men are underrepresented in the general registered voter base in Kansas, this is especially the case among those with past felonies.
- At 74%, white individuals are slightly underrepresented among unregistered but eligible voters with past felony convictions when compared to making up 79.75% of the general population in the state.
- Black Kansans, which make up 6% of the state population, are highly overrepresented among unregistered but eligible voters who are returning citizens, constituting approximately 23%.
- Unregistered eligible voters are not evenly distributed across the state, with Sedgwick, Johnson, Wyandotte, Shawnee, Douglas, Saline, Reno, Geary, Montgomery, and Finney counties with the highest numbers of Kansans with past felonies eligible to vote.
To address the barriers to restoring voting rights and to build a more inclusive and accountable democracy in Kansas, the report recommends that policymakers implement the following proposals:
- Ensure voting rights are never lost, regardless of felony conviction
- Provide for the automatic restoration of voting rights
- Ensure automatic notification and assistance with voter re-registration
- Conduct educational outreach and voter registration assistance
- Synchronize statewide voter registration databases
- Implement “vote from jail” programs
The report, “Unheard Voices: Restoring Voting Rights to Returning Citizens to Build and Inclusive, Accountable Democracy in Kansas” and associated assets are available here.
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About the ACLU of Kansas: The ACLU of Kansas is the statewide affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU of Kansas is dedicated to preserving and advancing the civil rights and legal freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For more information, visit our website at www.aclukansas.org.
