Nebraska Supreme Court: Former Felons Can Vote

Court rules that secretary of state can't strip voting rights from people with convictions
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 16, 2024 12:47 PM CDT
Nebraska's Top Court Says Former Felons Can Vote
Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen holds a news conference in Lincoln, Nebraska.   (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

Nebraska's top court has made a decision that could affect some tight election races in the state. In a split decision issued Wednesday, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that people with felony convictions who have completed their sentences can register to vote, the Omaha World-Herald reports. The court ruled that Secretary of State Bob Evnen, a Republican, did not have the authority to strip former felons of their voting rights. Six of the court's justices were appointed by Republican governors and one was appointed by a Democratic governor. Two of them dissented.

  • Evnen's order. In July, Evnen ordered county officials to stop registering former felons. He cited an opinion from Attorney General Mike Hilgers, who said a law passed by the state Legislature earlier this year restoring voting rights to people as soon as they had completed parole and prison terms was unconstitutional, the AP reports.

  • 2005 law was also nixed. Hilgers said a 2005 law that restored voting rights to people with felony convictions two years after they had completed their sentences was also unconstitutional. Hilgers argued that only the Nebraska Board of Pardons—which consists of him, Evnen, and Gov. Jim Pillen—had the power to restore voting rights.
  • Ruling could make a difference in tight races. The ACLU says Evnen's order could have stopped 7,000 people from voting, many of them in the state's 2nd Congressional District, the AP reports. Nebraska awards some of its electoral votes by district, and the Omaha-area district's vote could potentially tip the balance in the presidential race, reports the New York Times. The district chose Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2016. The district could also determine control of the House.
  • The "key takeaway." "Given the sheer scale of disenfranchisement that this decision corrects, there is no question that it will be remembered as one of our state's most consequential voting rights decisions," said Jane Seu, a lawyer for the ACLU of Nebraska, per the Times. "For Nebraskans who have been caught up in this mess for the last few months, the key takeaway is this: if you are done with all terms of your sentence, you are eligible to vote, and there is now a court decision backing that up."
  • Evnen argued for one of the country's toughest voting restrictions. The World-Herald reports that Evnen called for what would have been "one of the country's most restrictive felon disenfranchisement laws." The. only state that currently bans all people with felony convictions from voting is Virginia.
(More Election 2024 stories.)

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