Florida will not be allowed to block ex-felons who cannot afford to pay certain court fees from registering to vote or voting, a federal judge said in a preliminary injunction issued Friday.
Power to (some of) the people, right Flo’duh?
This only illustrates how much stuff is going on across the country that gets little attention
because Trump gobbles up the news pages. Every time I hear about a new Executive Order I shudder, because it almost inevitably screws someone or destroys something that shouldn’t be destroyed, and the public doesn’t even really know about it. Someone earlier brought up Trump’s order that may tend toward privatizing Medicare and increasing its cost to those covered. We don’t have a nation of laws anymore. Laws are ignored and twisted, as in Florida, because Republicans don’t like them, or ignored and distorted or discarded by executive act.
When did we become a monarchy, ‘cause this government sure is acting like one?
It sounds like the state of Florida is funding their justice system like Missouri municipalities run their municipal courts. The fines and fees are stack on top of one another, and poor people have a hard time getting them paid off.
But won’t this allow Donnie to vote if/when he gets out?
Depends on where he registers, and which property he considers his primary domicile. Would also depend what properties he has left after civil forfeiture.
Cause its difficult to tax crazy.
Down here in Florida, we’ve been pretty much on top of this issue for awhile. I’ve had about half a dozen serious conversations with county and state leaders in the past week about this.
Rest of the country may not be paying attention, but we are.
If you could find a really big shingle you could write on it “I can craft discriminatory, anti-democratic restrictions on voting that if you’re not really paying attention sound reasonable on their face” and then hang that shingle outside your office and make a lot of money in certain states. Glad to see this one flying into increasing headwinds.
If he goes in for half of what he’s done, he’ll come out bone spurs first. Voting will be the least of his concerns. 
If Stalin said, “ I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how. ”… the GOP is executing a “I will only allow certain types of voters, not the ones that will vote against me”, strategy.
The neoconfederate wing on the U.S. Supreme Court will surely keep the poll tax in place & who knows overturn Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections.
I have too many chores today to read the opinion.
Is the comparison to other fines/court orders in there?
I.e., one can’t vote if they haven’t paid full personal and business taxes, parking tickets, alimony, child support etc.?
Seems only fair…
Not for long.
The dirty rotten evil motherfuckers are trying to alter the rules on referendums to make it almost impossible for one to succeed .
It was our last resort to get things accomplished that the Republican Supermajority , against the will of the people who have no interest in democracy or what the citizens want only the interest of corporate donors
It got us fair Districts and Medical Marijuana and the felon voting rights
In every case they fought them tooth and nail dragging out court cases until the courts prevailed
This:
Sen. David Simmons, an Altamonte Springs Republican, contended that the legislation was needed to combat potential fraud and protect the “integrity” of Florida’s constitution. Democrats, however, loudly criticized the measure as a power play pushed by special interests afraid of future constitutional amendments.
“It simply strikes to the heart of our democracy,” said Sen. Gary Farmer, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat.
Constitutional amendments can be placed on Florida’s ballot in several ways. Citizen groups seeking to place an amendment on the ballot have to gather signatures from nearly 800,000 registered voters, and their amendment has to be reviewed by the state Supreme Court.
The legislation passed Friday would place additional requirements on citizen groups seeking to get an amendment on the ballot. Anyone gathering voter signatures would be required to register with the state. Groups that hire people to gather signatures could not pay them based on the number of signatures obtained. And ballot measures would be required to include language noting the initiative’s affect on the state budget and estimated impact on the economy.
@daveyjones64
Yup
Their motto: Fuck the poors
This is only part of the issue though. A big part is that people aren’t even told what they are supposed to pay, so they think it’s paid off and then go down to register and then either get hit with another one or get threatened with arrest if they register and there’s something they aren’t aware of.
“When an eligible citizen misses an opportunity to vote, the opportunity is gone forever; the vote cannot later be cast,” Hinkle wrote, explaining why he was imposing the preliminary injunction in the case. “So when a state wrongly prevents an eligible citizen from voting, the harm to the citizen is irreparable.”
GOP: “Opportunity is gone forever?” “[H]arm. . .is irreparable?” But, but, that’s the beauty of it.
Is there a strategy to handle the next voter suppresion dodge, massive challenging of signatures on mail-in ballots where the voter has a name corresponding with certain ethnicities? This strategy can also be used on a per-neighborhood basis. Assume 100s of thousands of challenges.
“Causing irreparable harm to citizens” - that should be the Republican motto now.
At least this judge is explicitly calling out voter suppression as a harm. All of those evil “voter-ID” measures are based on the opposite notion, namely that it’s better for 10,000 lawful voters to be barred than to let 10 fraudulent ones even walk into the polling place.