With the Iowa caucuses a day away, Democratic voters are voicing frustration that their state is the only one in the nation that still has an outright ban on former felons voting without prior approval from the governor.
Under Iowa law, former felons have to individually apply to the governor for their right to vote to be reinstated. Perez and other experts told NBC News, however, that the amount of former felons with access to that information and the resources and ability to actually go through the application process is minimal.who are incarcerated at a rate five times that of white people.
According to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform and advocacy group, approximately 24,000 former felons in Iowa are currently eligible to apply to have their voting rights reinstated. But only a fraction of those have done so. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds delivers her Condition of the State address before a joint session of the Iowa Legislature on Jan. 9, 2018, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa.“One of the biggest challenges is that there is generally very little public education about this, and very little effort by the state to inform people affected of their rights,” said Marc Mauer, the group’s executive director.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, has repeatedly said she wants the voting rights for former felons restored. But she wants it done via an amendment to the state Constitution — which would have to be passed through the state legislature — and has ruled out signing an executive order that might restore those rights immediately. Reynolds proposed a Constitutional amendment to the state legislature last year.
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