It’s been clear for a long time that Florida is the most important swing state for US presidential hopefuls. It’s quite hard to win an election without it. The GOP knows this and consequently has made Florida the toughest state for ex-felons to regain their voting rights after serving out their sentences and completing every step of the parole and restitution process afterwards. This law currently disenfranchises close to two million people in that state or over ten percent of the state electorate.
In 2007, a law passed the State Legislature making it easier for non-violent ex-felons to regain their voting rights after they served their time. According to a recent article in the SunSentinel, under Governor Charlie Christ, “the clemency board automatically restored the rights of nonviolent offenders who served their time — and a total of 155,315 got them back during his four-year term.” Even Jeb Bush had a more generous record of restoring voting rights with about 65,000 ex-felons having their voting rights restored between 2002 and 2006. But under Gov. Rick Scott, a hard right Republican with heavy Tea Party support, the restoration of voter rights to those having served their time for felonies in the state slowed to a mere trickle. Florida States Attorney General, Pam Bondi made the rules far stricter in 2011 and as a consequence, only 2,200 ex-felons have had their voting rights restored as of 2016 in time for this years election. The reason given is the “need” to ensure complete rehabilitation of an ex-con before regaining his/her civil liberties. The obvious real reason is voter suppression; something that has a deep history in southern states like Florida going way back for many generations.
According to one website;
“On Mar. 9, 2011 the Florida rules of Executive Clemency were toughened. Automatic restoration of civil rights and the ability to vote will no longer be granted for any offenses. All individuals convicted of any felony will now have to apply for executive clemency after a five year waiting period. Individuals who are convicted, or who have previously been convicted, of certain felonies such as murder, assault, child abuse, drug trafficking, arson, etc. are subject to a seven year waiting period and a clemency board hearing to determine whether or not the ability to vote will be restored.”
The obstructive nature of this policy is clear including unreasonable waiting periods and added bureaucratic red tape. The obvious purpose it to strip likely Democratic Party supporters from the voter rolls thus giving Republicans a key advantage in a state with 29 electoral votes. The problem is that the Florida State Constitution forbids ex-Felons from having their voting rights restored requiring special permission from the governor’s office or the a State Clemency Board decision. A proposal to amend the State Constitution with a ballot proposal for 2018 is facing major obstruction; the Florida Voting Rights Restoration for Felons Initiative (#14-01) never made it to the Nov.8 ballot this year. The GOP is intent on continuing their grand old tradition of voter suppression for the poor and People of Color.
According to the Brennen Center for Justice, about 1.7 million Florida residents are denied their right to vote due to a prior felony conviction. This amounts to over ten percent of the eligible voters in that state. A report the Center cites published by The Sentencing Project, over six million people are disenfranchised nationwide due to a prior felony conviction for which they’ve already served time, completed parole and probation and made restitution. According to the 2016 report, Six Million Lost Votes, the dramatic rise in disenfranchised Americans having criminal records is astounding!
The report states that “there were an estimated 1.17 million disenfranchised in 1976, and 3.34 million in 1996 and 5.85 million in 2010.” Clearly the increase tracks with the rise in the prison population but along with this is a rise in socioeconomic inequality and a perceived need to suppress the vote of the poor as part of the ongoing class war by the rich. Such disenfranchisement is the only way to ensure the victory of GOP candidates who’s political agenda benefits fewer and fewer voters.
To understand the order of magnitude of the problem the Sentencing Project report cited above points out that one in forty-or 2.5% of America’s voting age population-has been disenfranchised by current state laws barring them from voting due to past felony convictions. Florida has nearly a third of those disenfranchised nationwide for past felony convictions. Florida is the most aggressive in its efforts to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters given the value of that state’s electoral votes in national elections. Florida has surpassed the rest of the nation in the increasing pace of voter disenfranchisement for quite a while. According to an August 2008 report of the Florida Advisory Committee of the US Commission on Civil Rights
“An independent assessment by the Florida Advisory Committee estimates that nearly 200,000 persons in the State of Florida lost their right to vote between 1995 and 2005 because of the state’s Constitutional ban. Over the same period of time, only about 6,500 ex-felons each year on average had their civil rights restored by the Clemency Board...”
One of the lessons of the 2000 election for the GOP was that voter disenfranchisement was key to winning national elections, especially in states like Florida, in an era when those elections have been won by such unprecedentedly close margins. Absent such restrictive voter rights restoration laws, the 2000 election would surely have gone to Gore who would have easily won Florida. Florida’s special role in the GOP’s class war against the poor’s constitutional voting rights, despite the Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution banning such obviously deliberate and discriminatory voter suppression, has continued unabated for years. Its time to bring such an egregious violation of human and civil rights-and an impediment to democracy for the ninety nine percent-into high relief and discuss it as openly and incessantly as we do other political issues.