Critic Of Voting Restoration Initiative Says Amendment 4 Pits Felons Against Each Other
Florida is one of only a few states that doesn’t automatically restore voting rights to felons who’ve completed their sentences. The fight goes back years and it’s been waged both in court and in the court of public opinion. Now, voters themselves have the chance to weigh in with Amendment 4. It would automatically restore rights to most felons. But there are exceptions that’s created a divide inside the main group pushing hardest for the change.
When Florida Governor Rick Scott took office eight years ago, he and the rest of the cabinet stopped a policy that streamlined the restoration process of voting rights to felons. In the years since, only about 3,000 of those people have had their rights restored. The rest, well…
“I think all of us would rather help you, but this record…it’s awfully difficult to say whether you changed your life. It doesn’t look like it,” Scott told Jemel Jerome Filler back in September during the last meeting of the state clemency board.
Filler is a school teacher and habitual traffic offender which led to his felony conviction. He didn’t get his rights restored. And he’s among an estimated 1.5 million Floridians in the same predicament.
The state has been sued over its rights restoration policy, and earlier this year a federal court determined the system is unconstitutional. Felons have to wait five years before they can apply to the state’s clemency board which decides whether to restore or reject their petitions. That board is made up of the Governor (Rick Scott) Attorney General (Pam Bondi) Agriculture Commissioner (Adam Putnam) and Chief Financial Officer (Jimmy Patronis).
Amendment 4 on the upcoming ballot would take away most of the clemency board’s power over that process—automatically restoring rights to most of the people who’ve completed their sentences. Most, but not all.
“If you look at the history of voting rights in this country, no one has ever saught to extend the franchise at the expense of someone else,” says Prison Legal News founder Paul Wright. He too is a felon, having served more than 20 years in prison for a murder conviction.
“Martin Luther King didn’t say ‘well, let’s just have some black people vote, but not dark skinned black people’…likewise, when we had the struggle for women’s sufferage, no one got left behind on that. And more recently, we have the movement for marriage equality.”
Wright argues excluding murders and sex offenders pits felons against each other and perpetuates stereotypes.
“What on Earth does having been convicted of murder 31 years ago have to do with whether or not I can vote? I’m actually more concerned about government officials that are corrupt…and betray the trust of taxpayers…maybe people convicted of voting fraud. But all those people under Amendment 4, get their voting rights back.”
Still, the exclusion of people convicted of murder and sex offenses is popular notion, and also championed by candidates running for statewide positions.
Amendment 4 has been heavily supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and the group that led the citizen drive to get it onto the ballot, Floridians for a Fair Democracy. The campaign has raised and spent millions of dollars on the effort, and still has a few million in the bank ahead of Election Day. According to polls, Amendment 4 is also one of the few voters are likely to approve next month.
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Well, from the looks of it Amendment 4 is going to pass… congrats to those it applies to.
Does this Amendment permanently ban sex offenders and murderers from receiving their rights, or do they have to continue the clemancy process as before?
Continue the clemency process
Will this clear the backlog making it easier for SOs to go through the clemency process?
It will clear the backlog. It will not make it easier for SOs to get clemency. So far the government has been rubber stamping no.
I’ll retype my comment since u didn’t understand what I was trying to say. …A person who broke in their neighbors home, tied them up, shot them, and beat the within an inch of their life gets to vote because the victims did not die????? Hello?
Correct – a person who committed crimes other than murder or a sex offense will be entitled to vote when their sentence is completed, automatically, under Amendment 4. Hi!
Hello. Just curious One aspect of the Amendment. What if, as in my case 20 years ago, I was convicted(pled nolo contendre actually) of an “Attempt” at a sexual offense? I think it might be able to be argued that since “Attempted” murder isn’t a prohibited status for rights restoration neither would anyone with an attempt at a sexual offense. Thoughts? Oh, and thanks for all you do.
Yes. But former Romeos and teen sexters are permanently barred.
I don’t live in Florida thank God. Amendment 4 is a very dangerous amendment that sends a message that sex offenders are sub human and deserve to be treated as such. They are saying those prejudice against them are justified and the evil they may perpetrate is justified with the states approval. Is the state also willing to take responsibility for the outcome of that amendment.
I guess the public or politicians down in Florida are more hateful and less educated than in more progressive states? What else would explain the rampant stupidity?
This is Shameful and is truly a HEINOUS crime.
@joe123,
It’s not necessarily about lack of education as much as awareness with the public in pretty much anything pertaining to incarceration in the great state of Florida. Well, if you don’t look at the national average of education levels where Florida ranked 47th in the nation…
Point is, often the public is in the dark on these matters and what little they do know is spoonfed
to them via local news.
He’s right and it’s nothing new. Anyone whose done time in Florida (or most anywhere else) has seen and heard the hypocritical remarks made against sex offenders inside, by both inmates and the scummy guards. All too often it puts sex offenders at greater risk, which the ignorant public are led to believe is the “just deserts ” for our crimes. We need real justice and that is our only true hope. “The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.” – Clarence Darrow