Minnesota Law Restoring Voting Rights Upheld by Court

The Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2023 state law that restores voting rights to 55,000 Minnesotans on parole, probation or community release due to a felony conviction.

Current Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential running mate Tim Walz (D) signed House File 28, also known as Restore the Vote, into law last year. Before the new law, people with felony convictions had to complete their probation before they could regain their eligibility to vote. The timing of the decision is important because early voting for Tuesday’s Minnesota primary election is well underway. Voting for the Nov. 5 general election begins Sept. 20.

The court rejected a challenge from conservative interest group Minnesota Voters Alliance. A lower court judge had previously thrown out the group’s lawsuit after deciding it lacked the legal standing to sue and failed to prove that the Legislature overstepped its authority when it voted to expand voting rights for people who were formerly incarcerated for a felony. The high court agreed.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) had been pushing for the change since he was in the Legislature. “Democracy is not guaranteed — it is earned by protecting and expanding it,” Ellison said in a statement. “I’m proud restore the vote is definitively the law of the land today more than 20 years after I first proposed it as a state legislator. I encourage all Minnesotans who are eligible to vote to do so and to take full part in our democracy.”

Minnesota was among more than a dozen states that considered restoring voting rights for persons with felony convictions in recent years. Advocates for the change argued that disenfranchising them disproportionately affects people of color because of biases in the legal system. An estimated 55,000 Minnesota residents regained the right to vote because of the change.

For more on the Court's decision, you can read "Law Restoring Voting Rights to 55,000 Minnesotans With Felony Convictions Upheld by State Supreme Court" at Democracy Docket, a digital news platform dedicated to information, analysis and opinion about voting rights and elections in the courts.