Florida: Proposals to restore felons’ rights move forward | Naples Herald

Two proposals that would automatically restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentences were approved Thursday by a Florida Constitution Revision Commission panel. In a 6-2 vote, the commission’s Ethics and Elections Committee approved a measure (Proposal 7), sponsored by former Sen. Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale, that would automatically restore voting rights to felons who have served their prison time and completed any probation or parole requirements. Felons convicted of murder or sexual offenses would be excluded. In another 6-2 vote, the panel endorsed a measure (Proposal 21), sponsored by Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, that would also automatically restore felons’ voting rights after sentences are completed.

Florida: Voting rights proposal advanced by constitutional review board | Florida Politics

A proposal to allow the automatic restoration of non-violent ex-felons’ voting rights cleared a Constitution Revision Commission  (CRC) committee on Thursday. The CRC’s Ethics and Elections Committee OK’d the measure (P7) by a 6-2 vote. “If successful, Smith and Joyner’s proposal would bring Florida in line with most of the states in the nation that already allow for automatic restoration of rights following completion of felons’ sentences and repayments of any outstanding fines,” a press release from the Florida Senate Democratic Office said. The proposal is backed by commission members Arthenia Joyner of Tampa and Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale, both former Senate Democratic Leaders.

Florida: Felon voter restoration initiative close to making 2018 ballot, supporters say | Florida Politics

The committee hoping to put a constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot that would automatically restore voting rights to nonviolent Florida felons is inching closer to the signature quota required to place an amendment on the ballot. Floridians for a Fair Democracy says it submitted more than 1.1 million signatures to various supervisors of elections during the week between Christmas and New Years. The minimum number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot is 766,200. According to the Division of Elections website, 745,461 signatures have been verified. That means the state needs to verify just 21,000 more signatures over the next two weeks before the Feb. 1 deadline. Organizers are confident they will reach that objective.

Florida: Orange County to appeal nonpartisan elections case to Supreme Court | Orlando Sentinel

Orange County will appeal to the state Supreme Court in its legal fight with its sheriff, property appraiser and tax collector over nonpartisan elections. The move revealed Monday is the latest in the years-long battle stemming from two countywide votes in 2014 and 2016 on whether elections for six constitutional offices, including comptroller, clerk of the circuit court and elections supervisor, should no longer be partisan. Sheriff Jerry Demings, Property Appraiser Rick Singh and Tax Collector Scott Randolph, all Democrats, sued to overturn the amendments, claiming they violated state law. A circuit court judge agreed and rejected the idea of nonpartisan elections, a ruling upheld by the 5th District Court of Appeal in December.

Florida: Experts: Broward’s elections chief broke law in destroying ballots | Politico

The election supervisor in Florida’s second-most populous county broke the law by destroying ballots cast in last year’s congressional primary involving Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, according to election-law experts across the political spectrum. The congresswoman’s opponent has sued to get access to the ballots. The case — one of three ongoing independent lawsuits plaguing Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes’ troubled office — stems from a June lawsuit filed in circuit court by Democrat Tim Canova. He had wanted to inspect the optical-scan ballots cast in his Aug. 30 primary race against Wasserman Schultz because he had concerns about the integrity of the elections office. Under longstanding federal law, ballots cast in a congressional race aren’t supposed to be destroyed until 22 months after the election. And under state law, a public record sought in a court case is not supposed to be destroyed without a judge’s order.

Florida: Democratic Challenger Says Primary Election Ballots Destroyed Too Early | WLRN

The 2016 Democratic primary election in Broward County may have passed without any technical glitches, but one candidate maintains a federal law was broken after the fact. Democratic candidate Tim Canova ran against Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her congressional seat, which covers portions of Broward and Miami-Dade counties on Aug. 30, 2016. When the results rolled in, Canova lost by more than 6,100 votes. But he didn’t formally contest the election. Instead, he made a public records request to inspect ballots at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office. In June 2017, he filed a lawsuit when he and the office argued over the ballot inspection.   

Florida: Congressional candidate accuses elections chief of wrongly destroying 2016 ballots | Sun Sentinel

Congressional candidate Tim Canova said Friday that Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes wrongly destroyed ballots from the August 2016 primary while his court case seeking to review them was pending. Records from the election, which Canova lost, aren’t entirely gone. Snipes’ office made electronic copies of the ballots before destroying the originals. “The ballots are stored in a different manner,” said Burnadette Norris-Weeks, outside attorney for the elections office. Canova said that isn’t good enough. “Destroying the ballots when they’re the subject of litigation, it’s mindboggling,” Canova said in a telephone interview.

Florida: Why did Broward destroy 2016 ballots? Sanders ally seeks US probe. | CSMonitor.com

A South Florida law professor, running to unseat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is calling for a federal investigation into the destruction of all ballots cast in the August 2016 Democratic primary in Broward County. The challenger, Tim Canova, has made repeated public records requests and filed a lawsuit seeking access to paper ballots cast in his unsuccessful race last year against the former Democratic National Committee chair in Florida’s 23rd congressional district. A statistical analysis of the primary conducted last year suggested the election results were “potentially implausible.” Over the past year, the Broward supervisor of elections, Brenda Snipes, has taken no action on Mr. Canova’s requests to examine the ballots, and she has urged a judge to throw Canova’s lawsuit out. Despite the pending records requests and the ongoing litigation, Dr. Snipes ordered the ballots and other election documents destroyed, according to papers filed in circuit court here.

Florida: New bill aims to give felons in Florida another chance to own vote | WSVN

A new bill in the Florida Legislature aims to make it easier to restore a felon’s rights to vote and own guns after they have served time for their crimes. Felons in the Sunshine State are currently prohibited from owning firearms or voting. In order for a felon to earn back his or her right to vote and own a firearm, the person must be pardoned or have the Office of Executive Clemency restore their rights, WJXT reports.

Florida: Was the Heated 2016 Democratic Primary Rigged for Debbie Wasserman Schultz? | Alternet

In August 2016, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz faced off against progressive maverick and Bernie Sanders supporter Tim Canova—her first-ever primary challenger—after six terms in Congress. Just weeks earlier she had been forced to resign as head of the Democratic National Committee after stolen emails showed her talking smack about Senator Sanders and leaning on the scales in favor of her ally Hillary Clinton. Canova focused the national outrage against her, raising over $3 million, and turning the congressional election into a referendum on her policies and ethics. But with a 13.5% victory she overcame questions about her political viability and returned triumphantly to her job in Washington. Now new evidence of original ballots being destroyed and cast ballots not matching voter lists calls into question the results of that election. 

Florida: Advocates Push to Get Florida Ex-Felons the Right to Vote | Wall Street Journal

Civil-rights advocates in Florida are pushing to put a fundamental democratic question on the ballot: Should people convicted of felonies be able to vote? Florida bars an estimated 1.7 million people with felony records from voting unless they successfully petition the state to regain their rights. Its population of disenfranchised people with felony records accounts for more than a quarter of the 6.1 million nationally, according to the Sentencing Project, which advocates for criminal justice policy changes. Only Kentucky and Iowa currently maintain similar restrictions on voting. Every state except Maine and Vermont disenfranchises felons in some way, but in most states, they regain the right to vote automatically either after leaving prison, or completing probation and parole. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia has used executive authority to restore voting rights to 154,000 former felons in the last two years.

Florida: New bill could help those with convictions restore voting rights | Florida Times-Union

State Rep. Cord Byrd filed a bill Wednesday that allows those who’ve served prison and probation sentences for felonies to seek to have their voting and gun rights restored by petitioning judges. Currently, those convicted of felonies have those civil rights revoked unless the governor offers clemency. This bill would allow people to file petitions in court that argue they deserve to have their rights restored; and it allows state attorney’s offices to oppose the petitions. Judges must determine if the people asking for their rights back have led law-abiding lives since release and if they’re likely to continue to obey the law, if they’re not likely to be a danger to others and if giving back the rights is not contrary to the public’s interest. Judges could not restore individual rights, like voting rights, but would be required to restore all rights, including the right to own and carry firearms.

Florida: Bill to protect voter info filed in both houses | Florida Politics

A bill that would shield the personal information of voters and preregistered minor voter registration applicants has been filed in both houses of the Legislature as of Monday. Rep. Cyndi Stevenson is carrying the House version (HB 761), while Sen. Tom Lee is carrying the Senate iteration (SB 532). The bill would exempt the “legal residential address, date of birth, telephone number, and e-mail address of a voter registration applicant or voter” from public records requirements, in addition to “information concerning preregistered voter registration applicants who are 16 or 17 years of age.”

Florida: State may counter “growing threat” to election security | Associated Press

Saying there is a “growing threat” to Florida’s election systems, the state may spend nearly $2.4 million in the coming year on cybersecurity efforts designed to protect election-related software and systems from outside hackers. Gov. Rick Scott included the request, which initially came from state election officials, in budget recommendations he gave to the Florida Legislature last week. Scott asked for the money even though state officials have provided limited details behind efforts to infiltrate Florida’s election systems ahead of the 2016 elections. The Florida Legislature has also not held any hearings on what happened.

Florida: New online voter registration a great tool, elections officials say | Orlando Sentinel

Most people do just about everything online today. They pay their bills. They make hotel reservations and file their income tax returns. Now, residents can use their computers to register to vote or change their party affiliation as Florida recently joined 35 other states and the District of Columbia to offer online voter registration. Central Florida elections officials are lauding the online service as a “great tool” that will encourage more people to sign up to vote and improve the accuracy of voter rolls. “The online voter registration process has opened the door to a lot of folks who have not previously registered to vote,” said Michael Ertel, Seminole County Supervisor of Elections. “When I first registered to vote back in the late ’80s, I had to take a forward step. I had to go to the supervisor of elections office. Since that time, elections offices have come to the voters.”

Florida: Voting restoration amendment has 750,000 signatures | Florida Politics

The main backer of a proposed constitutional amendment that would automatically restore some felons’ voting rights after they complete their sentences says his group now has collected over 750,000 signatures. Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, also said on Wednesday that he’s confident the amendment will have a million signatures by year’s end. “The needle is moving,” he said in a phone interview. The Florida Division of Elections website showed as of the end of Wednesday that the citizen ballot initiative, known as “The Voting Restoration Amendment,” has 301,064 verified signatures. Initiatives need 766,200 valid signatures for ballot placement. Signatures must be spread across Florida’s 27 congressional districts, with the total number due pegged to voter turnout in the most recent presidential election.

Florida: Voting-rights effort finds a new venue in constitution commission | The Florida Times Union

The committee traveling the state on a mission to improve Florida’s constitution is hearing one message over and over. “Every place we’ve gone around the state, every single time we’ve had public comment, a full third have mentioned restoration of rights,” said Chris Smith, one of 37 members of the state Constitutional Revision Commission. Voting rights are revoked in Florida when a person is a convicted of a felony. It’s one of just three states with such a rule, the others being Iowa and Virginia. Florida has disenfranchised 1.5 million people because of felony convictions, according to the nonprofit Sentencing Project, which says that figure includes 21 percent — more than one in five — of the state’s African-Americans. Florida’s disenfranchisement rate is the highest among the 50 states, according to the organization, which said Florida is connected to more than a quarter of the people nationwide who have lost their right to vote.

Florida: Felons Want Voting Rights Back As Soon As They Complete Their Sentences | NPR

On most days from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Mary Grimes can be found pacing along a crowded street in Orlando, Fla., with clipboards in both hands. “Can I have five minutes of your time?” the 58-year-old says to a parade of passers-by. Those who are in a rush, she quickly wishes well; the others, Grimes directs to a blue and yellow form, reciting her spiel and soliciting a signature from each. For several months, she has made her living this way. She transforms public parking lots, city parks and sidewalks into a home office from which she urges registered voters to endorse proposed constitutional amendments.

Florida: Does this candidate’s last name start with G or T? She’s suing to change the ballot | Miami Herald

Claiming gender and ethnic discrimination by elections officials, a candidate for Miami City Commission has asked a judge to order new ballots printed that properly identify her surname and place it ahead of the names of her two competitors. Denise Galvez Turros says she filed a complaint in circuit court Wednesday arguing that Miami’s city clerk erred when he identified her last name as Turros. Though her name is reflected on the ballot as “Denise Galvez Turros,” it was placed third after competitors Manuel “Manolo” Reyes and Ralph Rosado because of alphabetical ordering.

Florida: Online voter registration form may violate law that created it, elections chief says | Sun Sentinel

Florida’s new online voter registration form violates the very state law that created it, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said Tuesday. “The law requires no differences [between in-person registration and] online,” Bucher told the Palm Beach Legislative Delegation. “But in the online program, voters must provide their exact name from the Department of Highway Safety and the last four digits of their Social Security number, and the date of issuance [of their driver’s license].” In-person registrants can provide either their Social Security number or their driver’s license number but do not need to supply both. With much fanfare, the Florida Department of State debuted online voter registration at the beginning of October. The online registration system was created under a bill passed by the Florida Legislature in 2015. That bill was filed by state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, a member of the Palm Beach Legislative Delegation.

Florida: Head of State Elections Supervisors “Very Pleased” With Rollout of new Online Voter Registration System | The Capitolist

A week after Florida rolled out its new online voter registration system, the president of the state association representing election supervisors says she is “very pleased” with with the way the new system has been received and how it has performed. “To my knowledge, we’ve not had any issues. I have tried to keep in touch with the other counties and listen to anything that might be coming through, but I don’t know of anything,” said Taylor County Elections Supervisor Dana Southerland, who also serves as the president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. Florida is the 36th state to offer an online registration system. The system was activated on Oct. 1.

Florida: State’s population grows but list of active voters shrinks. Here’s why. | Bradenton Herald

Even as Florida attracts hundreds of new residents every day, the state’s pool of active voters is actually shrinking. This paradox is easily explained. All 67 counties must periodically scrub the voter roll to make it more accurate and to be sure voters live where they say. Counties can’t do that close to an election, so they do it in non-election years. Turns out, that’s good news for Republicans and bad news for Democrats. In Florida, a revolving-door state where people are constantly coming and going, the roster of active voters keeps changing. The voter roll expands in a presidential election year, when political parties are aggressively signing up voters, and it shrinks the following year, only to grow again, then shrink, like an accordion.

Florida: Will Florida Banish the Ghost of Jim Crow? | The Atlantic

Next year, Florida voters may finally right a wrong first perpetrated 150 years ago by racist state legislators who were desperate to deny equality to African Americans. Voters may enfranchise almost 1.6 million fellow Floridians; or they may retain an approach that long-dead white supremacists conceived to disenfranchise blacks, an approach that is still spectacularly successful at diluting their political power. This particular historical evil began after the Civil War, when white-supremacist legislatures were resisting efforts to treat blacks as fellow humans with equal rights and dignity. Though attempts to block the 14th Amendment failed, and though the Reconstruction Act of 1867 forced Florida to add an article to its state constitution granting suffrage to all men, creative racists kept many blacks from the ballot box with educational requirements and a lifetime voting ban for convicted felons, knowing blacks had been and would be abused by the criminal-justice system.

Florida: Leaders consider proposed Florida Constitution amendment to let more felons vote | Naples Daily News

Members of the Florida Constitution Revision Commission have taken initial steps toward loosening restrictions on felon voting rights. Under a proposed amendment, offenders who have served their sentences, including prison time, parole and probation, would have their voting rights automatically restored. The revision would apply only to felons who have committed nonviolent and nonsexual crimes. Proposed amendments must be approved by 22 commissioners to be placed on the 2018 ballot. Measures then must receive 60 percent of the vote to pass.

Florida: Closed primary elections draw scrutiny | News Service of Florida

As Florida’s population grows and more residents shun traditional party affiliations, voters are befuddled, if not angry, about the state’s closed-primary system, including the use of write-in candidates, three local elections supervisors testified Wednesday. “When it comes to the primary election, our voters are confused,” Broward County Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes told the state Constitution Revision Commission’s Ethics and Elections Committee. Many new voters move to Florida from other states with more open voting systems as opposed to Florida’s closed primaries, which are restricted to voters who are registered with parties. Florida is one of nine states using a closed-primary system. “We have people coming from all over the country, and they bring with them the experiences that they have had and what they know,” Snipes said. “It’s difficult for them to understand.”

Florida: Amendment to end “write-in candidate loophole” advances | Palm Beach Post

The Florida Constitution Revision Commission got off to a cautious start Monday, advancing only two of more than 1,400 constitutional changes that had been filed by the public. The commission, which meets every 20 years and has the power to put constitutional amendments on the 2018 general-election ballot, voted to give further consideration to a measure to close the so-called “write-in candidate loophole” in state election law and to an amendment that would remove obsolete language related to a failed high-speed rail plan. Commissioner Sherry Plymale of Palm City asked the commission to give preliminary support to an amendment (700396) from Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg that seeks to end the practice of closing party primaries when a write-in candidate is on the general election ballot.

Florida: Should Florida Restore Felon Voting Rights? | HuffPost

Nearly 1.7 million Florida citizens are permanently disenfranchised from voting in state and federal elections because of being former felons. Disenfranchisement has climbed from 2.6 percent of the state’s adult citizens in 1980, to 10.4% today, the highest rate in the nation, including one in five adult African Americans.[i] A pending Voting Restoration Amendment would automatically restore the right of all Florida’s former felons to vote after they complete parole and probation, except for those convicted of murder or felony sexual offences. If approximately 680,000 signatures are gathered by December 31, 2017, the Amendment will be included on Florida’s November 2018 ballot to be decided by Florida citizens.

Florida: Once called too risky, Florida online voter registration finally arrives | Tampa Bay Times

Florida is now the 35th state in the U.S. where people have the option to register to vote or to update their registration online. The system went live Sunday, more than two years after the Legislature passed a bill requiring online registration to take effect by Oct. 1, 2017. … Applicants are required to provide information, such as the date their driver’s license was issued and the last four digits of their Social Security number. The 2018 election for U.S. Senate and governor will be the first in Florida to use online registration. The new option has been years in the making. County election supervisors lobbied for it for years, saying it will save money, improve accuracy of voter rolls and improve convenience for voters. But Gov. Rick Scott’s administration strongly resisted it, citing “potential risks and challenges” and the possibility of cyber-attacks, more than a year before Russians attempted to hack the state’s voting system in the 2016 election.

Florida: Ex-senators pitch voting rights amendment | Florida Politics

Former state Senate Democratic leaders Arthenia Joyner and Chris Smith have filed a measure with the Constitution Revision Commission that would restore voting rights to felons who have served their time and completed any other post-prison requirements. Joyner, a Tampa lawyer, and Smith, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer, are members of the commission, which can place state constitutional amendments directly on the 2018 general-election ballot. Under the proposal, voting rights for convicted felons would be restored “upon completion of all terms of a sentence including parole and probation.” Felons convicted of murder or a sexual offense would be excluded from the automatic voter restoration under the amendment.