10% of adults in Florida cannot vote due to a felony conviction, but 21% of black adults cannot vote in Florida due to a felony conviction.
Seeing how black voters tend to lean democratic, giving them their voting rights back would help move the electorate to the left there. Blacks tend to support the democratic party 9-1 over the GOP (however men are in general more conservative, black men only support the dems 80%, and I’m sure the majority of felons are men).
Anyway, can a democratic governor in Florida just wholesale restore voting rights to felons? The state probably would’ve went blue in 2016 had ex felons had the right to vote.
This piece from the Brennan Center for Justice says the restriction on felons voting in Florida is in the state Constitution though apparently voting rights can be restored via clemency.
Given that the Supreme Court of Virginia overturned Governor McAuliffe’s blanket restoration of rights the precedent would seem to require a case-by-case review. Of course there could be significant differences between Virginia and Florida that I am unaware of.
So perhaps a Democratic governor could implement a program to target voting rights restoration on a case-by-case basis, but to do so across the board may require an amendment to the state constitution, an unlikely prospect.
Having paid their debt to society? Then yes. They do deserve their right to vote to be reinstated. BTW lets nip the implication on the bud: Many conservatives get the wrong idea that most felons are democrats but that is mostly really a result of the Republicans being so active in denying the rights of many that do reform.
It is really a very rude awakening when ex-convicts find that being Republican does not help, so many then decide to support democrats because they are the ones that most of the time want to restore their rights.
You mean the less rich less white guys who couldn’t afford better lawyers? Here in Texas, felons who have completed their sentences (imprisonment, probation and/or parole) are automatically re-enfranchised.
There can be several parts of a punishment for a crime: restitution to the victims, fine paid to the civil authorities, incarceration, probation, loss of voting rights, restricted access to firearms, listing on a registry of e.g. sex offenders, and probably many others that I can’t think of at the moment.
There is simply no reason to assert that once a person who has been convicted of a crime is released from prison that their debt to society has been paid in full. What if a lifetime loss of voting rights is part of that payment?
p.s. My beef is with the argument. I don’t agree with taking away voting rights.
I don’t agree with taking away their voting rights also, but I’m only trying to get a bit of a middle ground. Not saying that the middle ground would also be inadequate, but that is what I see as possible. In any case, I do think that once a person has been released from prison there is no longer IMHO any reason to deny their right to vote.
I’m not sure the reason you shortened the quote in this fashion but it seems to me to confuse what you are quoting. Especially as you’ve combined different paragraphs.
Since Quartz is not American, he probably doesn’t know the meaning of gerrymandering. Which was named after Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts in 1812, when he redistricted Massachusetts to favor the Democratic Republicans. The Federalists created the word–when one of the new districts was thought to resemble a salamander……
I’m perfectly ok with felons not being able to vote. They’ve demonstrated a supreme lack of judgement and so I don’t think we need their opinion on who should be elected. I also support a ban on felons owning guns, I have yet to hear anyone proclaim that they’ve paid their debt and should have their rights to firearm ownership restored.
Then I’m afraid you haven’t been paying attention.
It used to be that there was a pretty strict federal ban on felons possessing firearms. However, in the late 80s, Congress loosened the rules considerably, by amending the law to say that if a state restored a felon’s right to have guns, then the federal ban was lifted automatically as well. This has created a patchwork across the country of whether a felon is banned from possessing firearms.
The NRA was one of the driving forces pushing for the federal amendment.
One could use the exact same reasoning to deny votes to the poor, or the uneducated, anyone who has ever declared bankruptcy, etc. Would you be OK with that too?
I know a “felon” that is a felon for taking a whiz on an exit on interstate 30 in the pine trees way outside New Boston, Texas at 3 AM in the morning on a Tuesday when he was 19, 15 years ago. He is also a “registered sex offender”.
I know another “felon” that was a guy that’s crackhead older brother used his spare coat in the trunk of his car as a storage place for the coke he was selling.
No, I’m just saying, if felons shouldn’t be allowed to vote because it is an indication of “a supreme lack of judgement”, then we can think of other groups that one could argue also lack judgment.