Kentucky restored voting rights to 178,000 with felonies. That's not far enough, advocates say

More than 178,390 Kentuckians who completed sentences for nonviolent felony convictions have regained their voting rights since Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2019 blanket pardon, meant to slash one of the country's highest voter disenfranchisement rates, a new report has found.

But Kentucky remains one of the few states that still levy a lifetime voting ban for those with felonies without an executive pardon.

Despite Beshear's action, Kentucky still has the fourth-highest disenfranchisement rate in the nation, with nearly 6%, or 197,672 of its residents, unable to vote.

And that still falls disproportionately on Black residents, 15% of whom cannot vote, which is the nation’s seventh-highest such rate, a League of Women Voters report found.