This November, Floridians will vote on a proposal to amend the state constitution. Amendment 4 is bittersweet.
If passed, many Florida residents—who have paid the price for their wrongdoing–will have their right to vote restored. Florida law bars those with felonies from voting and a large number of people, many of color, have been disenfranchised – about 1.5 million.
At the same time, Amendment 4 will bring injustice. Some individuals with felonies are NOT included, those with murder or sex offense convictions. Amendment 4 campaigners say they are “committed to ending the disenfranchisement and discrimination against people with convictions”, yet Amendment 4 would enshrine discrimination into our state constitution.
What is the concern with allowing these individuals, who have also completed their sentences, to vote? Are they concerned that they will commit lewd sexual acts at polling places? If so, Florida offers ‘vote-by-mail’ ballots. The truth is; there is no public safety concern, or any legitimate justification for this exclusion at all… except discrimination.
Amendment 4 would add a measure to the Florida Constitution that ratifies the type of discrimination that existed against women in the 1920s and racial minorities in the sixties. It might seem like a step towards restoring rights to those disenfranchised, but it’s a huge step backwards in civil rights.
Florida Action Committee stands for the restoration of voting rights for all those with felony convictions who have completed their sentences. We urge people to vote their conscience in November.
People should be ANGRY about this. I’m not even from Florida! How are people just casually commenting on this story and not doing a damn thing about it. This is what I wrote to the people behind this campaign:
https://secondchancesfl.org/contact-us/
Subject: Absolutely Shocked at the Discrimination of Your Campaign
Text: Hello,
It was brought to my attention what this group of campaigners is doing, but I am left baffled by it. This proposed amendment clearly states, “Felons convicted of murder or a felony sex crime would not be eligible.”
Excuse Me? Is this not 150% blatant discrimination and completely Un-American to exclude certain convictions?
So Florida would prefer to restore voting rights to a Repeat Violent child and wife beaters who almost kill their wives/kids and are a REAL danger to society due to their high recidivism rate, yet for people with the LOWEST recidivism rates, such as the guy who looked at inappropriate images, he’s considered HEINOUS and a Monster so we should take his rights away? On WHAT PLANET is this OK?
Why aren’t REAL Americans being up in arms over this discrimination? THAT is the real story here. You cannot pass an amendment disguised as giving everyone 2nd chances when that is a flat out lie. It’s 100% Un-American to accept this! I am frankly disgusted that Americans would take a HUGE step back into history when we had discrimination.
How do you sleep at night knowing that you’re restoring voting rights to a repeat violent offender yet the 19-20 year old who slept with his underage girlfriend is a SUB-HUMAN and doesn’t deserve the same basic rights of democracy after doing their time?
Thank God there are groups now opposing this campaign once they have found out the DISGUSTING behavior of whoever wrote this proposed law. I am absolutely shocked at the people behind this campaign.
Yes I am LIVID and if you’re American or a person who stands for Freedom of Basic Civil Rights then you should be too!
Either everyone is INCLUDED or throw the damn amendment out! Don’t tell me you can look in the mirror and call yourself a GOOD human being when you knowingly screw over tens of thousands of people when you damn well know that it’s NOT RIGHT.
Regards,
Angry and Concerned US Citizen
At least they are trying to do something to bring about change. What good would it do to propose something that has no chance to pass? But at least if you restore voting rights to some ex-felons, they can help vote in people who will work towards reforming the whole justice system in Florida, including the sex offender registry. There is nothing preventing others from proposing an amendment that includes sex offenders and murderers, so tell them to get off the couch and do it. Change has to start somewhere, and it won’t happen with a proposal that has absolutely no chance of passing.
If you believe the inclusion of sex offenders and murderers would prevent this from passing, your suggestion to “propos[e] an amendment that includes sex offenders and murderers” is useless.
I think you are missing my point. That organization tried the only proposal that has a chance to pass. The assertion here is that it only reinforces discrimination. I think it actually HIGHLIGHTS discrimination, and adds fuel to the national fight against the unfair treatment of sex offenders. My “suggestion to “propos[e] an amendment that includes sex offenders and murderers” was merely to point out that that organization itself was not trying to increase discrimination against sex offenders. They were only trying to pass SOMETHING to help disenfranchised people, because legislators WON’t help ANYBODY. They were only trying to propose something that had at least some chance of passing. The status quo is not acceptable. Change has to start somewhere, even if the change is incomplete.
Respect your opinion, Gerald.
And I highly respect and applaud your efforts. You are doing great work.
We appreciate that.
At the end of the day, what we are trying to accomplish is to open a dialogue. We realize there is nothing we can do to change Amendment 4. The ballots are printed and we’re a month an a half away from the vote.
What we can do is make people realize this is discrimination. This is taking one segment of a class and “othering them”. Effectively saying, “we’re the good felons, but those over there, they are the bad ones.” That type of message reinforces the misconception that sex offenders are incorrigible and not worthy of re-entering society.
In reality, there is no reasonable justification for excluding registrants from voting. Like the PR asked, ‘what is the concern’? Do they worry sex offenders will enter profanities as write-in candidates? That they will masturbate in the polling booths? That they will elect sex offenders to political positions? If it were a public safety issue; offer mail in ballots.
If we say nothing and allow ourselves to be discriminated against, we perpetuate the public sentiment. If we challenge, we’re still unlikely to bring change but we WILL bring thought.
I was at the NACDL conference in Atlanta, where Desmond Meade spoke about the Amendment. When Vicki Henry from WAR asked why the Amendment excludes our population, he said “because people hate child molesters and women hate rapists”. If he’s making those kinds of statements in front of a conference of criminal defense lawyers, you can imagine what he’s saying to a less sympathetic audience.
It’s very easy to throw someone else under a bus to get what you want. It’s unpleasant to be the ones thrown.
As you can see from the Press Release, we did not take a position on the Amendment – we only told people to vote their conscience.
I agree holey, the right to vOTE and bare arms are unabridged in the constitution, it’s an outrage. politicians have no right to change the constitution to further there career on the backs of law abiding citizens. I’ve been 35 years abiding and my rights are slowly being removed for no reason. Now with the 72 hour law in fl. ! I have been put on house arrest for obeying the law. I guess my grand children will visit me in jail because that’s where the righteous believe we belong. this is punishment beyond the scope of our sentence, but if it gets one more vote, dam those American fathers , sons, mothers, brothers ,sisters and in my case grandpa. Get it done now or it will only get worse
Instead of looking at it as reinforcing discrimination, we should use it as another example that HIGHLIGHTS discrimination. The ACLU spent over 5 million dollars supporting the initiative. No reason to think that they will stop there even if it passes. It still leaves open the possibility of restoration of civil rights, and the federal court has already ruled that Florida’s system of restoration of civil rights is unconstitutional. Does open up another constitutional challenge on equal protection under the law claim. The discrimination is already there in the constitution for sex offenders as felons. Every war is a series of smaller battles.
If The Sex offender person was denied Voting rights. Wouldn’t this make the Sex Offender Registry Punitive? A class of convicted felons but singles out one group sounds a lot like Discrimination to me. Because their is forgiveness with others’ conviction. But not the Sex offender that is extreme punishment.
Wake up Old Lady Justice and remove the blindfold and Miss Liberty do not weep as you hold the Tablet of law in your left hand But see now how the Country has come to ruin on the basis of lies and myths.
If the Sex Offender class got their voting rights back.The crooked people in Maimi-Dade area would be out of office .This what they fear.
Perhaps they should not even call it voting “rights” since they are exclusionary. Whatever anyone’s political leanings are, it is apparent that the desire to hold onto power by Republicans is most often behind efforts to disenfranchise segments of the population. I have always looked for the best candidate regardless of party when I vote, but voter suppression is a very anti-American action in my mind.