Can a felon become President of the United States?
For the first time in history, a presumptive presidential nominee from one of the two major United States’ political parties is a convicted felon. The Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must (1) be a natural born citizen; (2) be at least 35 years old; and (3) have been a US resident for at least 14 years.
There is nothing about criminal convictions.
However, in the 14th Amendment, there is another criteria. Specifically, that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the United States. Yet, the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That is unlikely to happen any time soon, i.e. not in time for November’s election.
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said most Class E felony convictions, the least serious type of felony in New York, result in non-prison sentences – often a combination of probation, fines and community service.
As a former president, a person enjoys lifetime Secret Service protection and he will continue to get protection wherever he is, according to Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service.
There is also precedent for presidential campaigns, albeit unsuccessful ones, being mounted from prison cells. Eugene Debs, the Socialist leader, conducted his 1920 presidential campaign from federal prison in Atlanta, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for sedition. He had encouraged Americans to oppose the draft in World War I. The Supreme Court, in that case, had affirmed his conviction, arguing he was convicted not for opposing the draft but for encouraging people not to comply with it. The decision keeping Debs in jail was written by then-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes just a few months before Holmes did a famous about-face on free speech that put the US on course for the way we view the First Amendment today.
Thomas Doherty, an American studies professor at Brandeis University, wrote last year about Debs, noting that he remained in prison as votes were cast and counted – he got nearly a million, more than 3% of the vote. Even after the Sedition Act was repealed, Debs was kept in prison. Then-President Woodrow Wilson refused to issue a pardon. Wilson’s successor and Debs’ rival in 1920, Warren G. Harding, later commuted Debs’ sentence in 1921.
So this turns to…can a convicted felon vote? Well, it depends. Each state makes its own rules. Vermont and Maine allow felons to vote from prison. There has been movement in multiple states toward allowing felons on parole to cast ballots. In 2018, Florida voters overwhelmingly backed a referendum to refranchise convicted felons. Yet Republican lawmakers who control the state’s government first delayed and then qualified the enfranchisement by requiring that felons must pay all fines and fees associated with their sentence.
A person’s right to vote in Florida in November’s election will depend on whether they are sentenced to a term in prison and if they have finished serving that prison sentence by the time of the election. Even if the judge ultimately tried to give a person prison time, it is highly unlikely his right to appeal his conviction would be exhausted before Election Day. If, somehow, there was another conviction in one of the two federal criminal cases before Election Day, that might be another story.
There are other problems for many post-incarceration felons in Florida, as CNN has reported previously, although they would not apply currently. For starters, there is no clearinghouse of data about what fees are required. It has led to confusion and kept many people from voting.
So, in short, though many felons cannot vote for President- one can become one.