Revamped Tool Lets Agencies, Organizations Help Americans Vote

Washington, DC – In 2018, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) built RestoreYourVote.org and RecupereSuVoto.org, a first-of-its-kind online tool to help Americans who have been impacted by the criminal legal system understand their voting rights. Since its debut, RestoreYourVote.org has become the most reliable tool available to aid people with felony convictions in determining their eligibility to vote. 

The Restore Your Vote tool has now been updated to give media, advocacy groups and government agencies the ability to feature the tool directly on their websites.  

The tool, which is regularly updated as laws change, has been visited by over 300,000 unique users and is cited by the Department of Justice to help voters with past felony convictions navigate voting laws in their state. CLC’s Restore Your Vote team also operates a hotline, where voters can directly receive free and confidential rights restoration services.  

Click Here to Embed the Restore Your Vote Tool on Your Website 

Felony disenfranchisement laws silence roughly 4.6 million Americans and disproportionately impact Black and brown communities. In fact, many of these laws were explicitly designed to silence Black voters and are relics of Jim Crow. Today, 5.3% of Black Americans are disenfranchised due to felony convictions compared to 1.5% of the non-Black population.  

Of the nearly 24 million Americans with past felony convictions, more than 19 million people can register to vote right now, but don’t know it. This is due to a patchwork of confusing and evolving laws, rampant misinformation and government-sponsored intimidation tactics that keep Americans from exercising their freedom to vote.  

RestoreYourVote.org helps bridge this gap by guiding users through simple questions about their convictions to help determine whether they can register to vote or can get their right to vote restored in their state.  

“Our democracy works best when everyone has a voice. Too many people with past felony convictions sit out elections because of confusion and fear around eligibility. The RestoreYourVote.org tool can help clear up misinformation that may be preventing tens of millions of Americans from exercising their freedom to vote,” said Blair Bowie, director of the Restore Your Vote program at Campaign Legal Center. “By embedding RestoreYourVote.org on their websites, media outlets, advocacy organizations and government agencies can be partners in the effort to educate as many people as possible about their voting rights and make American democracy more inclusive in the process.” 

With the 2024 general election right around the corner, battleground states like Florida have used law enforcement to intimidate and criminalize Americans with felony convictions so they are too afraid to vote. Access to free, straightforward resources like RestoreYourVote.org can help give voters the confidence they need to participate in democracy.  

Learn more about RestoreYourVote.org here.