The Tampa Bay Times reports that one week after the announcement by Gov. DeSantis that his goon squad had arrested a bunch of people for having voted in the 2020 election, that goon squad clearly heard from prosecutors and law enforcement, telling them that the legality of it all was not simply dubious, but easily disproved. So, they added a short couple of lines that put the onus on the person leaving prison to know whether or not they are legally eligible to register to vote. This is a wild distinction when you consider that the government and those working in official positions in federal prisons, voter registrar offices, election security divisions, and the like are supposed to know that stuff—as it’s their job.
“Anything that better helps people understand their voting rights and responsibilities is a positive step,” said Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which led the 2018 effort to restore voting rights to Floridians with felony convictions. “At the same time, the state is responsible for verifying voter eligibility and managing the voting rolls from start to finish.”
Like, maybe 3 extra-strength Gas-X?
The specific line is nestled in after other, more obvious paragraphs about things like promising to keep probation officers up to date on your living situation and address, and also not participating in illegal narcotic usage. It reads:
By signing this letter, you agree that you alone are solely responsible for determining it you are legally able to register to vote, and that you must solely determine if you are lawfully qualified to vote. If someone tells you that you are eligible to vote, you must rely upon your own independent knowledge (as informed by your own attorney if applicable) of your individual circumstances, and not upon the advice of any third parties who may be incorrect or unqualified to interpret your eligibility. You further acknowledge that if you were once lawfully registered to vote, you may later become a disqualified elector and unable to vote.
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You will notice that there is nothing in that paragraph that tells you how you might go about verifying whether or not you are allowed to vote. But here’s something on the Florida Department of Corrections Instructions To The Offender form they want people to sign: “The Florida Department of Corrections cannot provide legal advice or determine if you are eligible to vote.”
According to the Times, Florida has almost 150,000 residents on probation, though how many of them have signed this version of the form is not known. Florida Justice Center lawyer Alex Saiz told the newspaper that “This is just going to make future prosecutions easier for the state. I think it’s horrifying.”
Republican State sen. Jeff Brandes told the Times that the Sunshine State hasn’t done a good job of “streamlining” the process of distinguishing which Floridians are eligible to vote. For the people signing the form, he said the quiet part out loud, “How many of them can truly understand what they’re signing here?”
What ends up making this a perfect example of GOP policy is that it is essentially hypocrisy. The GOP is always vomiting up platitudes about rugged individualism and bootstraps and accountability for one’s actions, but this move by Gov. DeSantis is the complete abdication of accountability from the single institution he says needs accountability: government elections.
Conservative accountability for what they term “voter fraud” has always been racist, going back to Reconstruction-era racism against newly free Black Americans. In recent years, one need only to look at how punishments for alleged voter fraud are handed out along racial lines to see that the disparity is not coincidental.
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Donald Trump and his allies showed how close they were at overturning the last election, and now Republicans have put more voter suppression in place. For this election, we need you to volunteer with Election Protection—a nonpartisan effort to help voters exercise their constitutional right.
On The Brief podcast, we speak with Way To Win’s co-founder and vice president, Jenifer Fernandez Ancona. Ancona comes in to discuss how grassroots progressive groups are spending money in the hopes of getting as many voters as possible out for the midterm elections. She also talks about which campaign advertisements are effective and which are not. One thing is for sure, though: We are living in historic times, and what that means for these midterms cannot be easily predicted—so Get Out The Vote!
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