Continuing our “Democratic Erosion” miniseries, Danielle Trujillo examines democratic erosion through the lens of felon disenfranchisement in the United States and finds this issue is insufficiently incorporated into measures of electoral integrity. Comparing Louisiana and Mississippi, she notes what she argues is an incongruity: both share strict policies regarding incarceration and voting rights for former felons, but they differ dramatically in expert assessments of the integrity of the electoral process.
Danielle Trujillo
Danielle Trujillo is a recent graduate at the University of Denver, where she received a BA in social sciences, double majoring in political science and criminology. In the fall of 2018, she will be attending law school at the University of Colorado, with hopes of practicing criminal law in the future. This piece is revised from the capstone thesis written for Professor Elizabeth Sperber’s Democratic Erosion course in the spring of 2018.