The American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center won an important legal battle in a Florida Federal Court yesterday.
As Politico reported, “U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle declared key portions of the state’s felon voting law unconstitutional, ordering the state to put in place a new process that would help people register to vote in the state.
Throughout his 125-page ruling, Hinkle chided the state for a “pay-to-vote” system that he said was Byzantine because, in some instances, former felons could not even figure how much money they owed.
“This pay-to-vote system would be universally decried as unconstitutional but for one thing: each citizen at issue was convicted, at some point in the past, of a felony offense,” the judge wrote. “A state may disenfranchise felons and impose conditions on their reenfranchisement. But the conditions must pass constitutional scrutiny.”
The ACLU and SPLC were spearheading the legal battle. Now that they have won, is it our turn?!?!
Amendment 4, which gave former felons who have completed their sentence their voting rights back, excluded people who have been convicted of murder or a sexual offense. We’ve repeatedly asked why? For civil rights organizations to throw us under the bus like that, it was pretty hurtful.
But now they can make it right. Please join us in calling on the ACLU and SPLC to make it right!
You can write to ACLU of Florida at [email protected] or the SPLC [email protected] And please dont forget to remind Desmond Meade of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition that he promised to come back for the rest of us! He can be reached at [email protected]
Perils of comparing this movement to civil rights:
https://amp.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article243874057.html
I think all hope of having registered citizens allowed to vote will only occur in Florida when Lauren Book is out of office or has been so far out in the outfield that her bills look insane. I also believe the same thing about her father Ron. How many times has he been given a pass and still allowed to lobby. Let sleeping dogs lie in their alternative reality of deception!! Florida is a beautiful place to visit; yet not so much to live if you feel like everyday is walking through a minefield. I wish all of you the best in getting your right to vote back sooner than later!
I received a reply from Nancy Abudu, Deputy Legal Director at Souther Poverty Law Center, saying: “I too hope that one day a criminal conviction and financial obligations (regardless of ability to pay) will no longer be a barrier to anyone voting, period.”
All I have ever read or heard in person is that these groups and individuals truly plan on trying to expand the voting rights to every citizen of Florida. They all know it is the right thing to do.
If these people with their newly-acquired right-to-vote will register and vote, they could be a deciding vote for our cause.
No, it’s not our turn. But it should be. I have to smile when I see all the outrage over the perceived unconstitutionally of lockdown conditions. Yet there is no outrage for the loss of our constitutional rights. We were the test case. Now the governments know they can implement unconstitutional laws with impunity under the guise of “public safety.” As a great man once said:
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Actually, there is outrage coming from the conservative side but neither conservatives nor liberals care about us.
No I do not think we have to ask why. They threw us under the bus because they knew it would give the other ex-felons an edge. They were partly right, the voters went for it, at least enough for it to pass.
The bigger questions is, why the Governor hates ALL ex-felons? The short answer is, he wants to win again and wants the ex-Felon vote out of the equation.
Our chances to get to vote and to get off the registry are a toss up to which is more likely to happen first. I think they threw ex-murderers in there to make it seem they were not just picking on Ex Sex offenders, or as they call us, Sex offenders.
Send an email to both. I used the link for SPLC and got a returned email message as not able to deliver.
So far, it appears that all three of my emails went through.