Millions of Felons Are Getting Their Votes Back. Now They're Learning To Cast Them.

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The Daily Beast
Expert

What may be the biggest political revolution in decades is happening right under our noses.

Enfranchisement (or re-enfranchisement) is on the march in America, as  politicians, activists, and non-profits have taken up the mantle of extending voting rights to the disenfranchised and ensuring Americans know their voting rights and how to obtain the necessary documentation to vote.

Roughly 23 million Americans have felony convictions, and over 6 million of them have had their voting rights taken away. That’s twice as many  disenfranchised Americans as there were in the 1990s and six times as many as in the 1970s.

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On Tuesday, August 14, the Campaign Legal Center will launch RestoreYourVote.org to help Americans in all 50 states learn their voting eligibility.

“Felony disenfranchisement laws are extremely complicated in many states, and there’s not a lot of resources out there to help people figure out what their rights are. A lot of the people who are newly re-enfranchised don’t know that they have their voting rights back,” Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center told The Daily Beast.

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