Road to Restoration - 2026

The 2026 Midterm Elections are just days away! 

At Free Our Vote, we make sense of complex and fragmented criminal court data systems to determine voter eligibility. We then turn this data into action, teaming up with national and community-based organizations to run dynamic outreach campaigns. 

This year, our work has powered voter outreach campaigns in Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.  

Become a Free Our Vote supporter today and help us get closer to our $10,000 goal! Your donation sustains our voter restoration efforts, now and for future elections to come. 

Our 2026 State-Specific Programs

• In Michigan, we’ve partnered with the ACLU Fund of Michigan, Michigan Voices, and Voting Access For All to reach tens of thousands of people with past convictions, ensuring they know their right to register and turnout to vote. Read more here.
• In Missouri, a recent legislative change expanded voting eligibility to more than 41,000 people on felony probation and parole who had previously been barred from voting. We built a tool to help easily check whether individuals on probation or parole have disqualifying convictions before registering them to vote and aim to use this tool in coming years!  
• In Pennsylvania, we have established new partnerships with the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and VoteRiders. The League is using FOV’s data for a mail campaign informing formerly disenfranchised individuals of their eligibility to vote, and some may even receive handwritten postcards from local Leagues encouraging them to exercise that right on November 3. VoteRiders is hosting a text bank, and in addition to sharing information about eligibility, will also help people obtain ID when needed to vote. We’re excited these partnerships will connect more eligible voters with the information they need to vote in 2026 and beyond.
• During the Jim Crow era, Virginia, like many other Southern states, expanded felony disenfranchisement as part of a deliberate effort to reduce Black political power. In January 2026, a federal court found that this violated the narrow limits Congress established when the state was readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. As a result of this court case, more than 200,000 Virginians are newly eligible to vote. FOV is partnering with the Campaign Legal Center on a mail campaign and League of Women Voters of Virginia on a text bank campaign to inform these individuals that they can now exercise the right to vote that was previously denied to them. Furthermore, those who register will have the opportunity to vote on a ballot question that would amend the Virginia Constitution to restore voting rights for everyone automatically upon release from incarceration, further reducing disenfranchisement and solidifying broad voting rights restoration in Virginia.