New legislation giving Maryland felons the right to vote immediately after finishing their sentences could alter the outcomes of future elections inPrince George’s and Montgomery counties, area experts said Tuesday.
The law, which went into effect Sunday, eliminates restrictions previously placed on offenders provided they aren’t on parole or probation.
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“Anywhere you would have a close election between a Republican and Democrat or even Democrat and Democrat in the primary, that felon vote could now become a factor,” said Mykel Harris, chair of the Republican Central Committee in Prince George’s County.
Demographers estimate the new law will give 52,000 felons the vote. The breakdown for individual counties isn’t tracked, but based on the state’s inmate population, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties likely have the largest numbers of past felons. Government professor William Lewis of Bowie State University in Prince George’s County said the felon vote would impact local, state and national elections, in each case to the benefit of Democrats. He said the fact that the legislation passed during Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s administration will encourage more felons to vote for his party.
“If there was the slightest hint that felons leaving prison would become Republicans, they would never get the right to vote,” Harris said.
A past election in which former inmates might have made the difference was last year’s Democratic primary, when Donna Edwards came within 2,000 votes of unseating U.S. Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., Lewis and Harris said. In such races, candidates tailor their campaigns to groups that could make the difference in the final count, which is what could happen with felons. Kimberly Haven, director of the inmate advocacy group Justice Maryland, which spurred the legislation’s passage, said beyond the thousands of former felons now eligible to vote, it’s highly possible “the floodgates could open” with thousands more not directly impacted by the change.
That would include some past offenders who were eligible to vote butassumed they were not, along with families of felons who stayed away from the polls, she said.
