There is some amazing, joyful news to celebrate today and it seems so fitting to have this occur close to Dr. King’s birthday.
Floridians for a Fair Democracy organized a multi-year petition drive in 2015 to place an amendment on the 2018 ballot to restore voting rights to 1.5 million Florida citizens and they declared that goal has been accomplished !!!
I don’t know of any precedents for something like this. This provides the chance for Floridians to finally leave behind a vindictive law that was strategically exploited to elevate Jim Crow to power in the state. Today one out of five African Americans in FL and 1 in 13 Floridians cannot vote. To earn a spot on the ballot, 766,200 validated signatures were needed and so 1 million signatures became the collection goal in case some were disqualified. I am awed and inspired by this accomplishment. Here is what the chair, Desmond Meade, sent supporters on Thursday:
With the help of our committed grassroots partners and volunteers, the Second Chances campaign has submitted more than 1.1 million petitions for verification and we are confident we will qualify in the coming weeks.
This is a monumental achievement. And it was only made possible through the hard work and unwavering dedication demonstrated by the grassroots movement for over 5 years.
We cannot thank you enough for all your sacrifices and support. Together we are transitioning into the next phase of this amazing journey; and it is our honor to walk this path of liberation and restoration with you to restore the vote to 1.5 million Floridians from all walks of life.
“Monumental achievement” ? Absolutely.
I’ve been writing about felon disenfranchisement for a couple of years now. It was a shock to me when I first learned that almost 6 million people in the US are denied the right to vote because of a felony on their record. I always believed that after a person “paid their debt to society” in prison it was time to give them a fair chance to re-enter society and have opportunity to move on with their life. It continues to shock me how this is so badly covered by the corporate media and how few of us know anything about it.
I’ve been nervous lately because we still need 766k validated signatures by Feb. 2 and the count of signatures seemed to slow down last week. One week ago we had 662k, Wednesday 691k and Thursday 692k, leaving 10% more to go with only 2 weeks left, But last night I checked the total again and the count is at 731k, which is 95.4% of what we need, so we need 35,000 more validated. I also contacted a friend at Floridians for a Fair Democracy and she assured me that they were on track to meet the requirements because many petitions are in the pipeline being processed. The requirements include 766,200 total validated signatures, but also a qualifying number of validated signatures from 14 of the 27 Congressional Districts. Floridians for a Fair Democracy are confident the numbers will be there by Feb. 2. Here is where we stand as of last night on the 27 districts:
No state disenfranchises more citizens than Florida and it is due to the 1868 Florida Constitution and roots in the Jim Crow era. The legacy still exists today with more blacks disproportionately denied the vote in that state.
This was right after the Civil War when the Union was forcing states to allow all men to vote, including newly freed slaves, so white supremacists had to get creative.
“There were at least 15 or 20 different laws passed by the state of Florida, all of which were designed to eliminate the black voter, and the felon vote issue proved to be one of the most effective of all,” said University of South Florida government professor emeritus Darryl Paulson.
It's not that only Black felons would be barred from voting, but the Florida legislature was expanding enforcement of crimes they believed black men were more likely to commit. These so-called "Black Codes" were so effective that by the 1870s and '80s, it was estimated that 95 percent of convicts were black.
www.wtsp.com/...
As with Virginia, Florida leaves clemency on this up to the governor. But some governors are more just than others as you can tell from recent years of restorations of voting rights in Florida:
Even if the governor is willing, the law and political opposition makes restitution of voting rights a sluggish, clumsy process. Virginia recently restored rights to 170,000 former felons one case at a time. It had a political impact but what we should be celebrating is the restoration of rights, “democracy” in other words:
McAuliffe has preferred to downplay the political ramifications of the move. When we spoke in May of 2016, he said that it was up to parties to gain the allegiance of new voters. “I tell the Republicans, ‘Why don’t you go out and earn these folks’ votes?,’” he said. McAuliffe focused on the social-justice ramifications of the move, telling me that “the whole genesis of what we’re talking about here today goes to the core of racism in this country.”
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In Virginia, somewhere over 40,000 of the newly enfranchised citizens registered to vote. If they voted in the 2017 gubernatorial and state legislative races at comparable rates to the population, that would add 19,000 new voters, or somewhere just under 1 percent of the electorate.
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But those percentages are only part of the electoral equation. It’s possible—probable, even—that such a massive undertaking on behalf of a population heavily skewed toward African Americans motivated family members, friends, and communities of newly-restored people to vote, and also energized black voters in a post-Charlottesville contest in which racism became the key issue. Efforts at mobilization, linked to infrastructure created to get black people with felonies into the restoration process, But those percentages are only part of the electoral equation. It’s possible—probable, even—that such a massive undertaking on behalf of a population heavily skewed toward African Americans motivated family members, friends, and communities of newly-restored people to vote, and also energized black voters in a post-Charlottesville contest in which racism became the key issue. Efforts at mobilization, linked to infrastructure created to get black people with felonies into the restoration process, injected energy into majority-black neighborhoods. In a purple state where politicians already jockey for the any marginal advantages via gerrymandering and voting-rights restrictions, changes don’t have to be large in order to be meaningful.
The Florida amendment means the restitution of rights is no longer dependent on the governor but happens automatically. If we win this ballot initiative in November, it will mark a major milestone in advancing voter rights and restoring democracy. Be prepared to help because many of us have friends or family in Florida that might need the encouragement. More news is coming soon as the people guiding this work pivot to the next phase of the campaign to generate enthusiasm for the November vote. It will be challenging because the measure must win 60% of the vote to become the new law. I believe the backlash against Trump and the influx of Puerto Rican people may provide the advantage we need. This may be the best year to accomplish this.
This is a BFD. Reflect a bit on how we are often waiting for a state’s demographics to shift so that the Democratic party gains more electoral support. This one change in Florida law would create a significant demographic shift overnight. And Florida is of course now the swing state with the highest count of Electoral College votes.
Let’s celebrate this weekend and continue to focus on the strategy. More news on this to follow soon.
UPDATE:
A final note to thank people for getting this elevated to Recommended so that more Kossacks can be aware of this and be prepared to maybe help over the next 10 months.
I am fairly certain that the main theme of the campaign will be as a nonpartisan one — much like the League of Women Voters - and what is wrong with that? It’s about democracy and justice after all. Restoring voting rights to 1.5 million people in one vote — how often does that happen? To me this is most of all about doing the right thing, about living in a more just society, rejecting the Jim Crow past, and honoring the rights of each individual who was denied. The Robert’s Court decision on Shelby v. Holder really bothered me and it was a hard setback to take considering all of the people that sacrificed life and limb to get the right to vote strengthened in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. I deeply hope and pray that arc of the moral universe is again bending toward justice.