“When you look at the population in prisons today, it is disproportionately comprised of people of color; far too many there for nonviolent drug crimes. I want to make sure that time spent behind bars does not entail a stripping of your civic and constitutional rights. I would think especially for nonviolent offenders that we rethink removing the right to vote, and allow everyone, or as many as possible, to participate in our democracy.”
O’Rourke Says He Supports Voting Rights for Nonviolent Felons.
The Hill, April 24, 2019 | Tal Axelrod

“If you’ve paid your debt to society, you ought to be able to vote. This is particularly true given the hodgepodge of different treatment in different states. Voters are less likely to reoffend, which is only one reason we should be pushing for it.”
Restoration of Voting Rights
Andrew Yang campaign website, 2019

“Once someone pays their debt to society, they’re out there expected to pay taxes, expected to abide by the law, they’re expected to support themselves and their families,” she said. “I think that means they’ve got a right to vote.” “While they’re incarcerated, I think that’s something we can have more conversation about.”
Elizabeth Warren won’t say if she supports voting rights for incarcerated felons
Huffington Post, March 30, 2019 | Sam Levine and Sara Boboltz

“You’re paying a price, you committed a crime, you’re in jail. That’s bad. But you’re still living in American society and you have a right to vote. I believe in that.”

Klobuchar reported she supported “what they did in Florida, which is when [felons] get out they get to vote.”
Candidates Are Really Hesitant About Allowing Prisoners To Vote
Huffpost.com, April 10, 2019 | Sam Levine and Igor Bobic

“We right now have got a lot of work to do with the people in our country who have served their time and have been prohibited from voting… Currently in our country there are 6 million people who have served their time and are still prohibited from voting, and that has been an area of focus for me for quite some time, and we’ve got to address that and address that immediately, and so that is one of my first areas of focus and concern… Do I think that people who commit murder, people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights? Yeah, I do. I’m a prosecutor, I believe that in terms of, there has to be serious consequence for the most extreme types of crimes.”
Harris on whether felons should vote in prison: ‘There has to be serious consequences’ for extreme crimes
CNN.com, April 23, 2019 | Kate Sullivan

“I agree with those who have said that incarceration should not necessarily strip somebody of the right to vote. There’s a history in this country, especially in the SOuth, of African Americans being disenfranchised because they were over-incarcerated and that we need to change that… Where I would draw the line is with violent felons.”
Bernie Sanders’ call for all prisoners to be able to vote sets him apart from almost every other 2020 Democrat
Business Insider, April 30, 2019 | John Haltiwanger

“I do believe that…when you have served your sentence, then part of being restored to society is that you are part of the political life of this nation again. And one of the things that needs to be restored is your right to vote. As you know, some states and communities do it, some don’t. I think we’d be a better country if everybody did it. Frankly, I think the motivations for preventing that kind of re-enfranchisement, in some cases, have to do with one side of the aisle noticing that they politically benefit from that. And that’s got some racial layers too.”
Presidential Town Hall with Mayor Pete Buttigieg
CNN, April 22, 2019 | Anderson Cooper

“Where I begin all of this isn’t the fight to get people in prison their voting rights. It’s to get them out of prison. That’s my fight. We should have 50 percent reductions in incarceration, and that would still not be in line with the rest of the industrialized nations that do not incarcerate as many people…. Let’s start with the larger fight. Why are they going to prison in the first place for nonviolent drug offenses? Literally, now, two of the last three presidents have admitted to felony drug use, but they get to be president and low-income people, drug-addicted people, people with mental illness, they have to go to prison and not just lose their voting rights, but lose their absolute liberty.”
Cory Booker Wants To Allow Some Prisoners To Vote
Huffington Post, May 30, 2019 | Kevin Robillard

“You know, these felony disenfranchise laws – if you go back to some of the state legislative debates that were happening after Reconstruction, they were designed to stop African-Americans from voting. These have racist roots to these laws. And it gets to a point now where you can see the fruit of that poison tree – is that you have some counties in America where 1 out of 4 African-Americans can’t vote. And remember; the overwhelming number of charges are for nonviolent drug offenses. So here, you’ve served your time, and now you’re going to have 10, 20, 40, 50, 60 years more as an adult. And you’re told that your citizen rights have been stripped from you? This is a way, I think, that poor people especially – low-income people are being stripped of their democratic power.”
Sen. Booker To Propose Next Steps In Criminal Justice Overhaul
NPR, March 7, 2019 | Steve Inskeep