## Facts

- New York’s Constitution and Election Law barred voting by persons (1) incarcerated for a felony conviction and (2) on parole for a felony conviction.
- Joseph Hayden and a certified class of incarcerated persons and parolees who would otherwise be eligible to vote challenged the scheme.
- Plaintiffs alleged the scheme, though facially neutral, disproportionately disenfranchised Black and Latino citizens due to the interaction of felony disenfranchisement with racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
- Plaintiffs asserted claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (results-based vote denial) and under the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
- The district court dismissed the complaint; the Second Circuit heard the appeal en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act authorizes a disparate-impact challenge to a state law disenfranchising incarcerated felons and parolees.
2. Whether New York’s felon-disenfranchisement scheme violates the First, Fourteenth, or Fifteenth Amendments based on alleged racially disparate effects.

## Decision

- The en banc Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal (8–5).
- The court held that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not authorize challenges to state felon-disenfranchisement laws based on disparate impact.
- The court held the challenged scheme did not violate the First, Fourteenth, or Fifteenth Amendments on the allegations pled.

## Legal Principles

- Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as interpreted by the Second Circuit, does not provide a cause of action to invalidate state felon-disenfranchisement provisions through a results (disparate-impact) theory.
- Where statutory text is deemed ambiguous as applied to felon disenfranchisement, courts may consider legislative history and constitutional structure before construing a civil-rights statute to intrude on state authority over the franchise.
- The Fourteenth Amendment’s representation-reduction clause (“except for participation in rebellion, or other crime”) and Supreme Court precedent recognizing felon disenfranchisement as constitutionally permitted limit constitutional challenges to facially neutral disenfranchisement laws absent actionable intentional racial discrimination.
- The First and Fifteenth Amendment claims were treated as not extending further than the equal-protection theory on these facts and likewise failed without allegations establishing unconstitutional discriminatory purpose.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that VRA § 2 does not reach New York’s disenfranchisement of incarcerated felons and parolees and that, absent proof of intentional racial discrimination, the scheme did not violate the First, Fourteenth, or Fifteenth Amendments, warranting dismissal of the complaint.


Hayden v. Pataki, 449 F.3d 305 (2d Cir. 2006) (en banc)