You might have noticed something over the past few years.

Happening now, there's a push by some Missouri lawmakers to expect to

this wave of states restoring voting rights for people who have served time in prison for serious crimes.

Kentucky's new governor has given voting rights back to more than 140,000 felons.

Virginia Governor Terry McCall have signed a sweeping order today to restore voting rights

to more than 200,000.

Politically speaking, these actions have been seen as a way to run up the score for Democrats.

It was just conventional wisdom back when Virginia's governor expanded voting rights in

2016.

Republicans in the Commonwealth quickly accused the governor of abusing his executive power

to help Democrat Hillary Clinton win a battleground state.

But that idea, the ex-felons are going to end up voting for Democrats.

The thing is, it's all just speculation.

We don't actually know very much about the politics of currently incarcerated people.

This is Nicole Lewis.

She's a reporter for the Marshall Project.

It's a news outlet that covers the criminal justice system.

And when Nicole hears people going on about what kind of effect these formerly incarcerated people are going to have on elections, she says, you don't know what they think.

The little bit that we do know actually comes from data about people who've been released from prison. We felt like it was a sort of prime time to get a sense of, well,

if folks are going to be able to get to the polls once they get out, what do they think?

You know, what do they believe in?

So Nicole and her colleagues decided to ask.

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