A Quarter of Florida's Black Citizens Can't Vote. A New Referendum Could Change That.

[think]

A QUARTER OF FLORIDA’S BLACK CITIZENS CAN’T VOTE. A NEW REFERENDUM COULD CHANGE THAT.

Spencer Woodman
December 22 2016, 2:21 p.m.

FOR MORE THAN a century, the state of Florida has presided over one of American history’s single most effective and enduring efforts to disenfranchise voters. By far the most populous of the three states that strip lifelong voting rights from people with felony convictions, Florida is home to some 1.5 million residents who can never again cast a ballot unless pardoned by the state’s governor, according to a calculation by The Sentencing Project.

Florida’s legions of disenfranchised voters are disproportionately Democrat-leaning minorities — including nearly a quarter of Florida’s black population — numbers that advocates say amount to a long-standing and often ignored civil rights catastrophe. This racial skew means that the state’s mass disenfranchisement could have changed the outcome of some particularly important elections — such as Bush v. Gore — and thus the direction of modern American history itself. Most recently, after the state’s Republican governor clamped down on the ability of ex-felons to have their rights restored, Donald Trump won the crucial swing state by a margin less than a tenth the size of the state’s disenfranchised population, leading some to question the effect that felony disenfranchisement may have had on the size of Trump’s Electoral College win.

In spite of the state’s eye-popping voting statistics, national groups, including the Democratic Party, have shown little interest in placing real resources behind recent efforts to roll back the country’s most impactful voting restriction.

Yet in recent weeks, even without any significant organizational backing, a coalition composed largely of disenfranchised Floridians quietly reached a new landmark in a long and laborious fight to overturn the state’s law. On Monday, after organizers had spent years gathering the requisite 68,314 petition signatures, Florida’s high court announced it had set a March date to consider the proposal to allow a referendum on the 2018 ballot asking voters to roll back the state’s felony voting restriction.

“To the best of my recollection, never before has a purely grassroots effort gotten as far as triggering a Supreme Court review,” said Desmond Meade, an ex-felon and the chairman of the Floridians for a Fair Democracy, the group leading the effort. “This is a major milestone.”


Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/22/a-quarter-of-floridas-black-citizens-cant-vote-a-new-referendum-could-change-that/

[Madam45for2923]

1. Their effort sounds promising! -- but wow!!! such horrible statistics!

[think]

2. Yes. It's astonishing that 1.5 million people in Florida aren't allowed to vote. I knew that it was

happening in Florida but not to this extent.

[LonePirate]

3. I wish them them the best with the court review of the initiative.

I'm guessing the review pertains to wording and maybe constitutionality of the initiative. Then again, with Florida, you can never be sure.

[Truth321]

4. 25% have felonies????

Last edited Fri Dec 23, 2016, 08:02 AM - Edit history (2)

That's a lot of crimes. Millions of crimes? Does anyone know the breakdown of crimes? Murder, robbery, and lots of rape??

[think]

5. According to the Sentencing Project which the article quotes as a source it's actually 21.3 % in FL

So the headline is overstating it a bit.

6 Million Lost Voters: State-Level Estimates of Felony Disenfranchisement, 2016

African American disenfranchisement rates also vary significantly by state. In four states – Florida (21 percent), Kentucky (26 percent), Tennessee (21 percent), and Virginia (22 percent) – more than one in five African Americans is disenfranchised.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/6-million-lost-voters-state-level-estimates-felony-disenfranchisement-2016/

[ManiacJoe]

6. It could be an accounting trick similar to New York:

there are no misdemeanors, just class D felonies.

Hopefully someone from Florida can clear it up.