Collaborative Research: The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States

该项目将研究美国剥夺重罪犯公民权的起源、范围和后果。我们的初步估计表明，1996 年有 460 万选民因其犯罪状况而被剥夺选举权，而 1972 年这一数字还不到 50 万。该项目有三个总体目标：(1) 估计被剥夺选举权的重罪犯人口的规模，并对该群体的未来规模趋势进行建模。 (2) 评估剥夺选举权的一些选举后果，因为重罪犯人口不成比例地来自少数族裔和穷人，因此更有可能获得民主党候选人的选票，而不是共和党候选人的选票。 (3)考察各州在重罪犯投票权待遇方面存在差异的根源。方法将包括计算机模拟、全国选举研究数据分析以及当前人口调查投票补充调查中的州级投票率信息。利用有关不同州法律的法定历史的信息，我们将通过对所有州政策制度变化的时间进行定量研究，并对最近改变法律的几个州进行更详细的以案例为导向的研究，探讨产生这些不同结果的因素。尽管法律理论家和政策倡导者已经研究了这个问题的某些方面，但我们的调查将是对重罪犯剥夺公民权的第一次系统的社会科学考察。

This project will examine the origins, scope, and consequences of felon disenfranchisement in the United States. Our preliminary estimates suggest that 4.6 million voters were disenfranchised in 1996 due to their criminal status, up from less than 500,000 as recently as 1972. The project has three general objectives: (1) Estimate the size of the disenfranchised felon population and model the trends in the size of this group into the future. (2) Assess some of the electoral consequences of disenfranchisement, given that the felon population is drawn disproportionately from the ranks of racial minorities and the poor, and hence is more likely to take votes from Democratic than Republican candidates. (3) Examine the sources of the differences among the states in the treatment of felon voting rights. Methodolgies will include computer simulations, analyses of data from the National Election Study, and state-level turnout information from the Current Population Survey Voting Supplement surveys. Using information about the statutory histories of the different state laws, we will explore the factors producing these different outcomes through a quantitative examination of the timing of changes in policy regimes across all states, and a more detailed case-oriented examination of several states that have recently changed their law. Although legal theorists and policy advocates have examined some aspects of the issue, our investigation will be the first systematic social scientific examination of felon disenfranchisement.