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Background
One of the most significant barriers to voting is disenfranchisement – the systematic exclusion of people with felony convictions from voting. When millions of people impacted by the criminal legal system cannot vote, policymakers design policies without their perspectives. And this exclusion disproportionately affects communities of color. Voting rights restoration is crucial for democracy.
In March of 2023, the Minnesota Legislature passed the Restore the Vote Act, reinstating voting rights to over 50,000 Minnesotans who were living in the community but were disenfranchised at that time because they were serving felony probation or supervised release. This was a big step in the right direction.
But the work didn't end there: we still needed to understand the most effective ways to get these thousands of newly eligible voters to the polls.
From the Block to the Ballot is a multi-phase research project by the Minnesota Justice Research Center aimed at understanding best practices for engaging formerly disenfranchised voters with felony convictions.
In 2022, the project began with the first phase, B2B 1.0, in which we partnered with community organizations T.O.N.E. U.P. and WILD to reach about 13,000 eligible voters statewide through phone calls and texts. These tactics showed promising results in increasing turnout but revealed faultiness with our available contact lists.
In 2023, months after the Minnesota Restore the Vote Act went into effect, we launched B2B 2.0 which, alongside our same partners, focused on local, in-person relationship-building through door-knocking and found that those who had conversations with the team were nearly twice as likely to vote.
In 2024, we shifted into B2B 3.0, which tested postcard mailers at different frequencies to find out how effective this tactic is for registration and turnout specifically within this population.
1.0
Exploring Best Practices in Mobilizing Formerly Disenfranchised Voters in Minnesota
Our first pilot effort, From the Block to the Ballot 1.0 (B2B 1.0), sought to explore best practices to educate and mobilize formerly disenfranchised voters in Minnesota leading up to the 2022 election. Over a four-week period led by community partners at T.O.N.E. U.P. and in partnership with WILD, staff and volunteers contacted about 13,000 eligible voters in Minnesota who had been disenfranchised because of a felony conviction at some point since 2004 via phone call and text.
This pilot was a powerful lesson in what is possible when community members call and text formerly disenfranchised community members to discuss voting. We found a slight increase in the likelihood of voting among individuals we reached compared to those we did not reach. The pilot also provided powerful insight into the importance of prioritizing high-quality lists, using rigorous and targeted documentation systems, and investing in training volunteers and staff. All in all, we demonstrated that phone calls had a promising impact on the voting behavior of formerly disenfranchised voters in Minnesota.
2022
2023
2.0
Focusing Locally and Piloting a Relational Approach
Months after Restore the Vote went into effect, in the fall of 2023, we launched our second pilot effort, From the Block to the Ballot 2.0 (B2B 2.0). Still in partnership with T.O.N.E. U.P. and WILD, we decided to focus locally and prioritize in-person relationship-building to expand mobilization efforts in the local elections. We also piloted a brand new tool called OurVoice, a phone app developed by the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition through which staff and volunteers could seamlessly make calls or follow doorknocking routes.
We found that there is power in the relational process of B2B 2.0, but it is challenging to document in-depth. We observed that training matters for volunteers to prepare them for more relational and empathetic engagement on the phones and doors. Ultimately, we found it is the who and the how that made this effort distinct: Its leadership and participants were credible messengers with criminal legal system experience. We also used a very targeted list in the OurVoice app, and the outreach prioritized a relational approach. Those who had a conversation with our team were almost twice as likely to vote; this relational approach is powerful and effective, but hard to scale.
2024
3.0
Measuring the Effectiveness of Innovative Mailers
Our third effort, From the Block to the Ballot 3.0 (B2B 3.0), tested whether mailing postcards to formerly disenfranchised voters would increase their participation in the 2024 election. We sent postcards designed in collaboration with formerly disenfranchised Minnesotans to three treatment groups who received either one, three, or six postcards, while a control group received none. The postcards included messages like "No longer about us without us," along with information about voting eligibility and how to vote.
The postcards alone did not have a measurable effect on whether people voted—turnout rates were statistically similar across all groups. However, overall turnout was extremely encouraging. We also found that people who had registered to vote in the last 10 years were far more likely to vote than those who hadn't. The results suggest that direct, personal, coordinated, multi-organizational voter engagement efforts can successfully mobilize formerly disenfranchised populations. And, rather than relying on a single and somewhat impersonal tactic, communities should invest in comprehensive outreach strategies, early voter registration efforts, and credible messengers with lived experience in the criminal legal system.
This report was published in 2026.
What's Next + Get Involved
Our findings about what works and what doesn't can inform continuing efforts to raise awareness about voting rights and get out the formerly disenfranchised vote in Minnesota. In the resources section below, we link to some of the organizations working to mobilize this population—check them out if you want to get involved.
Research Team
Research Director, MNJRC
You can also support this project and others by donating to the Minnesota Justice Research Center. Your contributions make a difference in how we're able to do our work.
Assistant Professor, University of Maryland
MacKenzie Farrington-Youngblood
Research Assistant
Marci Exsted
Research Assistant
Fernando Galvez
Research Assistant
Tsiyhon Kika
Research Assistant
Research Intern
Partners
