A Philadelphian’s Guide to Voting Myths
The Philadelphia Citizen, 10/17/24:
“…TRUTH: Two categories of people who have criminal records cannot vote.
- You cannot vote if you are currently incarcerated for a felony conviction.
- You cannot vote if, in the last four years, you have been convicted of violating any part of the PA Election Code.
Everyone else, including people who are incarcerated for a misdemeanor, detained pretrial, on parole, on house arrest (or have previously been in any of those situations) can vote.
TRUTH BEHIND THE TRUTH: People who’ve been detained, convicted or incarcerated could be a powerful voting bloc. But they’re not, yet. In PA, only 66,056 of the 203,409 people released from state prisons between January 2000 and October 2023 were registered to vote. If they all registered and voted, returning citizens could swing a national election.
TRUTH BEHIND THE MYTH: It wasn’t always this way. Up until 2000, if you’d been convicted of a felony in PA, you could not vote in PA. On December 26, 2000, that changed. The Commonwealth Court (where judges are elected!) said prohibiting these folks from voting was unconstitutional. Now, people convicted of felonies can vote — and organizations like the Abolitionist Law Center are working to register returning citizens.”