Last week’s election held personal stakes for Sara Lee.

A Louisville mother of four planning to finish a master’s degree after battling addiction, Lee wanted to vote for candidates who could improve health care, education funding and women’s rights.

But Lee's 2013 felony drug conviction — for which she completed seven months in jail — meant the 37-year-old couldn’t cast a ballot. It left her watching on the sidelines.

"I feel like I don't have a voice," she said.

Kentucky has long had some of the nation’s highest rates of felony disenfranchisement — taking away voting rights because of a crime conviction. Nearly one in 10 residents — and a nation-topping one in four African-Americans — are barred from voting for life because of felony convictions, according to the Washington D.C.-based Sentencing Project.

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But on Tuesday, Kentucky's outlier status grew starker after Florida voters approved a ballot measure to automatically restore felons’ ability to vote once sentences are complete, except those convicted of murder and sex offenses. That left Kentucky and Iowa as the only two states to permanently ban all felons from voting unless restored individually by the governor. Virginia law also permanently bars felons from voting, but governors have recently been restoring rights automatically.

Now Kentucky reform advocates are hoping the passage of Florida’s closely watched amendment by 64 percent of voters, impacting 1.4 million people, will create new impetus in Kentucky. After years of failed proposals in the General Assembly to place a similar constitutional amendment before voters, Democratic lawmakers plan to file another such bill in next year’s session.

“We’re not in step with the rest of the country,” said state Sen. Gerald Neal, a Democrat from Louisville, who has long supported a change. “It’s time for us to step into the 21st century.”

Some groups like Kentuckians Voice for Crime Victims and politicians oppose changing laws that strip felons of their right to vote, particularly when violence is involved. On the national stage, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, has called voting a privilege that should be denied to felons.

“Those who break our laws should not have a voice in electing those who make and enforce our laws,” he said during a 2002 congressional debate, according to a transcript provided by his office.

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In Kentucky, felons with completed sentences, probation and parole can petition the governor for the right to vote through an executive pardon. The process can take years and can vary by who is in office, said Amanda Hall, who works on the issue with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

In November 2015, outgoing Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear issued an executive order to automatically restore voting rights to people with non-violent felony convictions who had completed their sentences, affecting more than 100,000 people. At the time, advocates pointed to studies showing that ex-felons who vote are less likely to commit new crimes or return to prison.

The move largely accomplished what the formerly Democratic-controlled state House had repeatedly advanced only to be blocked in the Republican-controlled Senate, where critics have pushed for a waiting period and wanted to reduce the types of felons who would be eligible.

But Beshear's order was reversed by the election of Gov. Matt Bevin, who argued it should be done by constitutional amendment. Since 2016, the governor's office has approved 975 of the 1,861 restorations of civil rights applications, according to the Kentucky Department of Corrections. About 78 percent have completed their sentences.

Meantime, there were more than 312,000 Kentuckians disenfranchised because of a felony in 2016, including 68,771 African-Americans, according to the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group that studies incarceration and criminal justice racial disparities.

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The Kentucky legislature in 2016 allowed expungements of Class D felonies after five years, which would allow a person to vote. Since then, the state has expunged records in 1,663 cases, according to Kentucky’s Administrative Office of the Courts.

But state Rep. George Brown Jr., D-Lexington, said that is costly and difficult for many, and the state needs to go further. He plans to again file a bill for the coming session to restore rights to felons who have served their time and were not convicted of violent sex offenses or homicide and have completed restitution and parole. It would be a proposed amendment to the state Constitution, requiring approval from 60 percent of lawmakers and ratification by voters.

“I think part of the problem is, from a political standpoint in Kentucky, some believe that those folks may likely vote Democrat, so it becomes a political issue for some people,” Neal said. “I’ve heard that expressed by some of my colleagues on the opposite side.”

Sen. Damon Thayer, the state Senate's Republican majority leader, did not respond to requests for comment.

Nearly every state restricts voting by felons, but many restore those rights upon release from jail or after completing parole or probation, said Sean Morales-Doyle with the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. Some permanently bar voting of those convicted of select serious crimes. But more states since 2000 have eased such laws.

In Florida, a federal judge declared the state's procedure for restoring voting rights to felons to be unconstitutional and ordered its criteria to be made clearer. That ruling is under appeal. No such case has been filed in Kentucky, the ACLU said.

But Florida allows for citizen-led ballot measures with public signatures. Advocates were able to gather enough signatures to place the proposed amendment on the ballot. Kentucky requires such measures be put on the ballot by the General Assembly.

Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, said about 70 percent of felonies are nonviolent. He believes that disenfranchisement laws do not promote criminal justice goals.

“When you have someone who comes home from prison, they’re expected to abide by the rules of society," he said. "We want them to have jobs, pay taxes, get involved in their kids’ school. And yet when it comes to voting, we’re essentially saying they’re still second-class citizens.”

The disproportionate impact on African-Americans reflects broader disparities in the criminal justice system, where harsher sentencing laws that began in the 1980s led to more convictions and filled prisons. In some predominantly black neighborhoods in areas such as western Louisville, disproportionate numbers of residents unable to vote can have a ripple effect, Neal said.

“When you don’t have that voting capacity, that stifles a person’s voice and by extrapolation that of the entire community,” Neal said.

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Jai LaShawn Wilson, 42, said he grew up near Victory Park and got mixed up in crime and drugs. He didn’t think much about losing the right to vote when he was convicted of felonies for assault and robbery, but now that he’s out of prison he feels differently. Too many in his neighborhood don’t feel like they can influence policies that impact them, he said.

“If you can’t vote, you can’t weed out the people who don’t stand for your community,” he said. "Our community has to understand and be educated about how every part of your life can be affected by how you vote, or how you don't vote - your taxes, your laws, your regulations."

Lee said her troubles came after she was hurt in a car accident and prescribed opiate painkillers. She was raising four children and working toward a master’s in counseling when she began struggling with addiction.

She said she was arrested for selling pills and in 2013 charged with several felonies including trafficking. Lee spent seven months in jail, she said, and now she lives in an apartment and works in a restaurant, hoping to return to school to obtain her degree.

While she also can't own a gun, run for office or serve on a jury, she said she is seeking to get her voting rights restored because she wants to be a participating member of society and not locked out of voting despite her past mistakes.

“I’m trying to change my life for the better. I pay taxes," she said. "Why can’t I have the right to vote?”

Amanda Hall, who recently got her own voting rights restored after a drug conviction and now works with the ACLU in Kentucky, said she was able to vote for the first time in last week's midterm elections.

"I had sat around and watched presidents elected and governors elected and I didn't have a voice," she said. "I was super nervous. I had butterflies in my stomach. I thought they would turn me away. I made sure to have my ID and postcard from the clerk and executive order. It was a huge deal."

Reporter Chris Kenning can be reached at ckenning@gannett.com or 502-582-4307

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