Registering Returning Citizens to Vote

Millions of people in the US are eligible to vote despite past felony convictions, but their voter participation rates are extraordinarily low. Efforts to register and mobilize this population have foundered due to data limitations. This has a disparate impact on Black and Latinx citizens, who are disproportionately likely to have criminal records. We use administrative data to identify and find contact information for people in North Carolina with past convictions, send a random subsample information on how to register to vote, and then track their registration and voting behavior. This work has been supported by JPAL North America and by the Russell Sage Foundation. (Current working paper)