Now that’s a memo I can get behind!
Yes. We also collected a boat load of petitions down here, so we have it on the ballot this fall. This is a good sign ahead of the ballot referendum.
When having paid your debt to society means having paid your debt to society.
Am I reading this right? It looks like if they slow-rolled it for everybody equally, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem, but giving preference to political allies vote by vote or by party or by (effectively) race, is biting them in the ass.
How likely is this to win?
It sounds to me as if the slow-rolling is a problem, but the arbitrary and capricious (and poltically/racially biased) part is icing. So a process that was not quite so slow, and that didn’t involve so many arcane steps that can only be navigated by someone with a gryffindor password and two elder wands, might pass muster.
Awesome. Bye bye GOPers.
@paulw Yep. I obviously haven’t read the judge’s decision yet, but my guess is that it centered on the issue of due process. You can probably take away voting rights temporarily as a result of criminal conviction (I think a constitutional challenge to that would probably fail)…maybe even permanently if that’s the rule that’s been legislated (same)…but if you’ve created a process for restoring those rights after they’ve “paid their debt,” you cannot create an inherently impossible process or administer the process in a manner that perpetually avoids its fruition, thereby permanently denying the right to vote.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx
And yeah, we all know why these laws were made. Looking at the lists of which states do what with respect to felon/misdemeanor voting rights, demonstrates why they do it beyond any reasonable argument. I’m willing to bet if we look at when and how these states made their rules or changed them, it would only further prove the point. However, I don’t know if…and I’d be somewhat surprised if…this case and ruling centered around the argument that the combination of FL’s felon voting rights rules, it’s slow walking of the voting rights restoration process AND it’s blatantly racist enforcement disparities across the state were being used to specifically target and permanently disenfranchise minorities. We all know that’s 100% the reality, but I tend to doubt that was the argument or finding here.
The court has to pretend, absent direct testimony, that the state government isn’t deliberately being racist.
If known criminals can be elected to office, then could-be criminals should be allowed to vote.
There is so much wrong here…! I followed the 2000 election and the heartbreaking Florida recount closely, so I know a little of whereof I speak.
First, this is a state interfering with a federal right. Second, the practice of disenfranchising felons is a Jim Crow idea, and persists in the Confederate states, so it’s racist in origin and on its face. Third, states (and I’m looking at you, Florida) have manipulated their criminal codes to boost the number of disenfranchised felons, for example by adding one day to the jail term for vagrancy to make it a full year, which bumps a misdemeanor to a felony–and disenfranchises more people for the crime of sleeping in the park. Finally, as the judge found here, the state unconstitutionally erects barriers to restoring voting rights.
And why are states hot to strip voting rights? Because ex-felons tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic (we’re talking 90%); it’s that simple.
Look it up and confirm what I’m saying. Then look up the number of black men in Florida who can’t vote. Then do the math: the raw number, the FL voter turnout in 2000, net 80% Democratic… and see how that would have reversed the certified 537-vote GW Bush victory, which is the real alternate-universe event that started us down the dark road we travel today.
(Oh, how I gnash my teeth!)
Polling shows that a majority of Floridians support it. I think last time I saw something it was in the 60% range.
But that’s not high enough to pass an amendment down here. We need to pick up about another 6 points I believe.
Its going to be pushed however. The concern is with a big governor’s race and a big Senate race…it may get lost in the weeds with voters.