Poll: Most Americans Don't Support Voting Rights For Jailed Felons

A resounding majority of Americans don’t support giving prisoners the right to vote in national elections, a poll found.

In the HarrisX survey for The Hill released Thursday, 69% of registered voters said incarcerated felons shouldn’t be allowed to retain their voting rights; 31% favored the idea.

The chief champion of voting access for prisoners has been Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a front-runner in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, but that position has come under fire from Republicans and a few Democrats, including another White House contender, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

Vermont and Maine are the only states that allow jailed felons to vote. Under federal law, voting eligibility is administered by states.

In the HarrisX survey, expanding voting rights to prisoners was still more popular than lowering the voting age, which had as much as 25% support, or granting voting rights to illegal residents, an idea backed by just 18% of respondents.

The poll found that allowing legal non-citizen residents to vote in national elections had 35% support.

The online poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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