Felons and the Franchise: The Case of Puerto Rico
November 3, 2026
By William & Mary Law Student Contributor
Felon voting laws in the United States are rooted in the English common law practice of “civil death”: criminal penalties, including revocation of the right to vote, imposed on the grounds that by voluntarily committing a crime, people with felony convictions have taken themselves out of the political community. Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment acknowledges that participation in crime can negatively impact voting rights. But aside from this, the states have broad discretion in deciding how to disenfranchise felons. The notion that people with felony convictions deserve lesser voting protections was recently confirmed in Jones v. Governor of Florida, with the Ninth Circuit holding that “States may restrict voting by people with felony convictions in ways that would be impermissible for other citizens.”
On the ground, this means many states restrict the right to vote for people with felony convictions in some manner. Currently, the only states with no felon disenfranchisement measures on the books are Maine and Vermont. There, people with felony convictions are allowed to vote, even from prison. However, many other states authorize permanent disenfranchisement of those with certain more serious felony convictions. According to estimates from The Sentencing Project, this means 2 million people across the United States are disenfranchised due to state laws that restricting voting rights even after completion of sentences.
Things are different in some of the U.S. territories. Like most U.S. states, Puerto Rico gives people with felony convictions access to the franchise once their sentence is complete. Article II, Section Twelve of Puerto Rico’s Constitution states that “[s]uspension of civil rights including the right to vote shall cease upon service of [a] term of imprisonment.” This provision protects Puerto Ricans’ right to vote post-release. However, unlike many states, Puerto Rico has also allowed inmates, including people with felony convictions, to vote in primary elections from prison since the 1980s. Thus, incarcerated individuals may exercise the franchise in this limited way before completion of their sentence.
The “Puerto Rico Immediate Decolonization Act” provides express terms for the exercise of inmates’ right to vote in primaries from penal or juvenile institutions. Section 975g, entitled “Voting Eligibility Requirements,” allows for early voting by inmates, as well as inmate absentee voting. Inmates who engage in early voting have access to the same electronic voting systems as are used in every other polling place on the island. Polling stations are set up with cardboard booths installed to provide inmates with privacy while they vote. In addition, vote-counting machines are also available in several prisons in Puerto Rico.
This process is administered by the State Election Commission’s Absentee Voting Administrative Board (JAVA), through a Political Party Balance Board who conduct identity verification, check for ballot fraud, and ensure privacy when inmate voters cast their ballots. For inmates engaging in absentee voting — for example, those who are incarcerated in a penal institution in the United States, but whose legal residence was Puerto Rico at the time of sentencing — are able to vote, and their votes are also administered JAVA. And these processes appear to work: During the 2016 election, inmate voter turnout sat at seventy-five percent, compared to six percent in Maine and eight percent in Vermont. Furthermore, in 2016, inmates comprised one-sixth of the voters who cast their ballots in Puerto Rico’s Republican primary. Candidates running for elected office have also been allowed to visit prisons to campaign.
However, inmate voting programs in Puerto Rico have not existed entirely without incident. In 2024, federal narcotics agents discovered a drug-smuggling scheme in Puerto Rican prisons with an unusual twist: inmates were selling drugs for votes. In particular, a prison gang formally known as Group 31 was soliciting votes for Governor Jenniffer González-Colon, a Republican and President Trump supporter. The indictment prepared by federal prosecutors included allegations that inmates, some of whom suffered from addiction, complied with the gang’s directions under threats of, or actual, violence, or threats that their drugs would be withheld. Prosecutors had gathered evidence implicating inmates, as well as staff, in the scheme. However, after the change in presidential administration in 2025, higher-ups at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Puerto Rico directed prosecutors to scrap the investigation entirely. Thus, Puerto Ricans were left without answers regarding the integrity of their felon voting infrastructure.
In sum, perhaps there is a balance to be had. Denying people with felony convictions the right to vote risks creating a permanent underclass. It goes against democratic ideals by discouraging justice-involved individuals from getting involved in civil life and creates obstacles to reintegration after people with felony convictions complete their sentences. Furthermore, voting is an inherently prosocial behavior which is associated with a reduction in post-release criminal conduct by felons. On the other hand, the prison drugs-for-votes scheme in 2024 raises concerns about states’ and territories’ abilities to preserve election integrity when administering voting by those still incarcerated. It is thus important that, when creating means for people with felony convictions or other justice-involved individuals to vote, lawmakers ensure the systems are monitored, and any abuses are acted upon to ensure elections in the states and territories remain free and fair.