Sign-on Letter: Support Notification and Restoration of Voting Rights for Texans With a Felony Conviction

April 23, 2025

Senator Bryan Hughes
Chair, Senate Committee on State Affairs
P.O. Box 12068
Capitol Station
Austin, TX 78711

Representative Matt Shaheen
Chair, House Committee on Elections
Room GS.6
PO Box 2910
Austin, TX 78769

Re: NOTIFICATION AND RESTORATION OF VOTING RIGHTS FOR PEOPLE WITH A FELONY CONVICTION 

Dear Chair Hughes and Chair Shaheen,

We, the undersigned advocacy and civil and human rights organizations, urge your support for SB 631/HB 4594 to restore voting rights to Texans on felony probation and parole and SB 2227/HB 590 to notify people with felony convictions when their voting rights are restored.

Over 479,000 Texans cannot vote due to a felony conviction—the second largest disenfranchised population in the country, behind only Florida.¹ Texas laws are particularly restrictive, prohibiting individuals from voting who are on felony probation, parole, or incarcerated for a felony-level conviction. Driving Texas’s high disenfranchisement rate is its ban on voting for over 327,000 people completing their sentence on felony probation or parole.

People of color in particular are more likely to be prohibited from voting because of the stark racial disparities in the Texas criminal legal system. Texas’s voting ban results in stark racial injustices in ballot access. Voting-eligible Black Texans are roughly 2.5 times as likely as non-Black Texans to lose their right to vote due to a felony-level conviction. Latino Texans are 1.2 times as likely as non-Latino Texans to lose their right to vote due to a felony-level conviction.²

By allowing those on felony parole and probation to vote and notifying eligible voters of their rights, Texas can improve public safety while also promoting reintegrative prosocial behaviors. Research shows that an opportunity to participate in democracy has the potential to reduce one’s perceived status as an “outsider.” The act of voting can have a meaningful and sustaining positive influence on justice-impacted citizens by making them feel they belong to a community.³

Research also suggests that having the right to vote immediately after incarceration matters for public safety. Individuals in states that continued to restrict the right to vote after incarceration were found to have a higher likelihood of experiencing a subsequent arrest compared to individuals in states that had their voting rights restored post-incarceration.⁴

Reenfranchising its entire voting-eligible population would ensure Texas lives up its own constitutional provision that “all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit.”⁵ We urge you to schedule hearings for and support SB 631/HB 4594 to restore voting rights to Texans on felony probation and parole and SB 2227/HB 590 to notify people with felony convictions when their voting rights have been restored.

Sincerely,

ACLU of Texas
All of Us or None Texas
Grassroots Leadership
Ground Game Texas
Human Rights Watch
Just Future Project
League of Women Voters of Texas
League of Women Voters, Galveston County
League of Women Voters, Williamson County
Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance
MOVE Texas Civic Fund
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Pure Justice Action Fund
The Sentencing Project
Texas Advocates for Justice
Texas Civil Rights Project
The Wright Cause Urban Youth Conservation

cc: Members of the Texas House Committee on Elections