Florida reforms its felon disenfranchisement rules -- a brief reminiscence about the 2000 election

[ProSense]

Friday, April 06, 2007

Florida reforms its felon disenfranchisement rules-- a brief reminiscence about the 2000 election

JB

Florida has embarked on a compromise plan to let many felons vote. To be eligible, former offenders must have not engaged in a violent felony, such as murder, kidnapping, and assault, must have completed their sentences and probation, and must have paid all restitution. Violent offenders still must petition the state's clemency board, an arduous process that can take years.

The compromise does not mean that most ex-felons in Florida will be able to vote, because the state must identify people who have long ago served their time to see whether they meet the new criteria. In addition, some ex-felons may not be able to afford to pay restitution and will be barred from the administrative process to restore voting rights until they do.

One test of this compromise will be how it meshes with the maintenance of Florida's voting rolls. You may recall that Florida's felon disenfranchisement rules became particularly important during the 2000 Presidential election. During the 2000 election Florida state officials attempted to purge the voting rolls of felons using defective lists (in some cases laughably defective) which wrongfully disenfranchised a significant number of voters, many of them likely Democratic voters. This purge of voting rolls effectively decided the 2000 election in Florida and put George W. Bush in office. Although we tend to remember that election as having been decided by the butterfly ballot and the decision in Bush v. Gore, it was actually decided by a series of tactics by Florida officials-- including the voting roll purge-- that violated the federal voting rights act, as the U.S. Civil Rights Commission later found. Civil rights groups successfully sued Florida for voting rights act violations arising out of the 2000 election; the state quickly settled out of court, promising plaintiffs most of the reforms they sought in the lawsuit. One of the things that the lawsuit could not do, of course, was change the result of the 2000 election in Florida.

More links between prosecutor firings and election fraud

[Donnachaidh]

1. Greg Palast covers this Bush hijacking of voter's rights in his book

"the Best Democracy Money Can Buy"

You can also watch BBC reports he did on the Florida 2000 elections at his site:

http://www.gregpalast.com