On August 7, 2024, the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the 2023 Restore the Vote Act (RVA), which returned the right to vote to individuals with felony convictions upon completion of their prison sentences. The law had been challenged a summer earlier by the Minnesota Voters Alliance (MVA), and the group’s lawsuit was defended by the state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the League of Women Voters.

Previously, voting rights restoration for felons was also predicated on completion of probation and payment of related fees, delaying the process significantly in most cases. After the RVA was passed, the MVA argued that the Legislature had overstepped its authority, relying on a tendentious reading of the state constitution’s grant to lawmakers of the powers to restore civil rights of the formerly incarcerated. “The Legislature attempted to restore only one civil right—the right to vote—without restoring the other civil rights,” MVA counsel James Dickey told the Court. “The restoration of one civil right cannot satisfy (the state Constitution) because voting expressly depends on the restoration of the other loss of civil rights.”

The high court, however, was in no mood for a grammar lesson. “It seems to me that when people get out of prison, they get a lot of their rights back,” Associate Justice Margaret Chutich told Dickey. “They can travel more. They can move around the state, the freedom of religion. They get to go to church, freedom of association, so why don’t those rights count?”

With that the Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the MVA lacked standing to bring its suit, which the group had claimed under the common-law doctrine of taxpayer standing by pointing to public expenses necessitated to effectuate the law. The high court said that argument failed because the “central dispute” did not involve “alleged unlawful disbursements of public funds.” Furthermore, the Court chided Dickey and the MVA: “[A] taxpayer cannot manufacture standing by pointing to expenditures that are incidental to implementing the law.” See: Minn. Voters All. v. Hunt, 10 N.W.3d 163 (Minn. 2024).

State Attorney General Keith Ellison, who defended the state and had also advocated for faster restoration of felon voting rights since 2003, said the decision was crucial for addressing racial disparities in the criminal justice system. As a result of the decision, approximately 55,000 people with felony records in Minnesota regained their right to vote.

It was by no means guaranteed how they would cast their ballots—a survey of United States prisoners had already shown more support for the GOP ticket in the upcoming November 2024 presidential election, as PLN reported [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.41.]. Yet the Supreme Court’s decision was cheered by Minnesota Democrats, including Gov. Tim Walz, who signed the RVA into law. The timing of the Court’s ruling also allowed affected former prisoners to vote in the elections, in which Walz was on the ballot as running mate to Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The pair then lost to former Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) and running mate JD Vance (R) by a margin of 49.8% to 48.3%.  

Additional sources: AP News, MinnPost

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