The United States maintains a shortsighted and punitive set of laws, some of them dating back to Reconstruction, denying the vote to people who have committed felonies. They will bar about 5.85 million people from voting in this year’s election.

In the states with the most draconian policies — including Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi and Virginia — more than 7 percent of the adult population is barred from the polls, sometimes for life.

Nationally, nearly half of those affected have completed their sentences, including parole or probation.

Policies that deny voting rights to people who have paid their debt to society offend fundamental tenets of democracy. But the problem is made even worse by state and local election officials so poorly informed about the law that they misinform or turn away people who have a legal right to vote.

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In Minnesota last week, the State Supreme Court issued an order that clarified a state law that denies the vote to people with felony convictions until they have their voting rights restored.

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The case involves a Ramsey County woman who pleaded guilty in 2010 to felony possession of marijuana but received a “stay of adjudication,” which meant that she was placed on probation. The woman says the probation office wrongly informed her that she was ineligible to vote in the upcoming election. In an affidavit, a local lawyer told of questioning prosecutors, county elections officials and others about the voting rights of similarly situated people without getting a definitive answer.