Editorials: Clear path for Florida ex-felons to regain right to vote | Orlando Sentinel

Try to imagine the uproar if every single active registered voter in Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Lake counties were turned away at the polls. Yet that’s the equivalent effect of Florida’s hardline policy against voting by ex-felons, which has disenfranchised almost 1.6 million people in the state. Civil rights activists have been working diligently to give Florida voters the opportunity to overturn this punitive policy, but it’s a long, hard — and expensive — slog. It’s much easier for a state panel to clear the way to right this historical wrong. Florida’s policy forces ex-felons who want to regain their right to vote to wait at least five years after they have completed their sentences, then apply to have their rights restored by the governor and the Cabinet. They meet just four times a year as the Board of Executive Clemency to consider applications on a case-by-case basis, normally reviewing fewer than 100 cases per meeting. The board has a waiting list more than 20,000 people long.

Mississippi: Fighting for the Right to Vote | Jackson Free Press

Roy Harness is a U.S. Army and a National Guard veteran, a recovered drug addict and a Jackson State University student studying for his master’s degree in social work. He has lived through the stress of military life, the depressing depths of addiction, which led to years of homelessness and helplessness—and ultimately a stint in prison for forging a check. “I owed the drug dealer a lot of money. That’s what caused me to write the check,” Harness told the Jackson Free Press. The McComb native says he started using drugs to numb his fear during his military service as well as deal with the pain of his service-related injuries. He went to prison for the forgery in 1986. Harness knew before he was released in 1988 that he had lost his right to vote—he remembers talking about it while he was in prison. “You hear about all this in jail,” he said. “… When I was up in jail, they were letting people out who were able to go vote.”

Alabama: In wake of reports, Alabama clarifies that some felons can vote despite debts | AL.com

Alabama has clarified its voting rights policy in response to a report by AL.com. Secretary of State John Merrill said via email Thursday that a class of felons featured in a Wednesday AL.com story are in fact eligible to register to vote, despite the fact that a number of them said they had recently applied for and been denied that right. Felons like Randi Lynn Williams are in fact eligible to immediately regain their voting rights, according to Merrill. Williams, a 38-year-old Dothan woman who was convicted of fraudulent use of a credit card in 2011, would not have lost the right to vote under a new state law that went into effect in August.

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: 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.

Arizona: Group asks Arizona to restore voting rights to felons | AZ Central

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a nationwide campaign Sunday on voting rights, with an emphasis in Arizona on restoring the voting rights of people convicted of a felony crime. The Let People Vote campaign is working with community members to help pass a bill in the Arizona Legislature to restore the voting rights of citizens with felony convictions upon the completion of their sentence. Alessandra Soler, ACLU Arizona executive director, said the organization aims to take back the vote in direct response to the Trump administration’s investigation of voter fraud, a problem she said “doesn’t exist.”

Mississippi: Lawsuit Seeks to End Mississippi’s Lifetime Felon Voting Ban | Associated Press

Mississippi’s constitution bars its citizens from voting ever again after being convicted of certain felonies. Now a legal group wants the federal courts to remove what it calls an illegal vestige of white supremacy by striking down most of these restrictions. Attorney Rob McDuff, who filed suit Thursday in Jackson, estimates that more than 50,000 Mississippians have been disqualified from voting since 1994 due to these convictions. About 60 percent are African-American, in a state whose population is 37 percent black. The suit describes the disenfranchising crimes as “an integral part of the overall effort to prevent African-Americans in Mississippi from voting.” “Once you’ve paid your debt to society, I believe you should be allowed to participate again,” said plaintiff Kamal Karriem, a 58-year-old former Columbus city councilman who pleaded guilty to embezzlement in 2005 after being charged with stealing a city cellphone. “I don’t think it should be held against you for the rest of your life.”

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.

Louisiana: Felon voting-rights case appeal lands at Baton Rouge court | The Advocate

Ashanti Witherspoon served 27 years at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for armed robbery and has been on parole since 1999, but because Louisiana law bars him from voting until his parole expires in 2045, he was on hand at a Baton Rouge appeals court Wednesday where documents were filed challenging the law’s legality. The 1976 state law prohibits roughly 71,000 felons on probation and parole from voting. “I’ve campaigned for people, but I can’t vote,” Witherspoon, 68, of Baker, said inside the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal. Witherspoon is a pastor, minister, motivational speaker and husband. “We’ll sit down and discuss the issues,” he said of his wife during election times. “I drive her to the place where she votes.” Witherspoon is one of the plaintiffs who filed suit against the state in an effort to have the four-decade-old law struck down.

Florida: Effort to restore felons’ voting rights gains momentum | Sarasota Herald-Tribune

It has been eight years since Neil Volz finished serving probation on a felony charge stemming from a congressional corruption scandal. During that time Volz has continued to atone for his crime. He went to work for his Fort Myers church helping homeless individuals dealing with drug and alcohol issues. He currently chairs the Lee County Homeless Coalition. But even as Volz married and became a dedicated member of his community who is devoted to helping the less fortunate, one measure of redemption eluded him: he still cannot vote. If Volz lived in Washington, D.C., where the crime occurred, he’d be able to vote. But he moved to Florida in 2008, and the state has one of the most restrictive laws in the nation regarding the voting rights of convicted felons.

Florida: Felons’ Voting Rights Activists Want 1 Million Petitions | WFSU

Florida’s campaign to restore voting rights to felons is gathering national media attention, and national financing. Now activists are trying to focus that energy to get the proposed constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot. WFSU reports on the grassroots campaign to gather 1 million signatures before the end of the year. … Under Florida law, felons are permanently barred from voting, holding office, and owning firearms, unless they get permission from the governor and his cabinet. They make up the state’s Executive Clemency Board. Governor Rick Scott addressed a clemency hearing earlier this summer. “Here’s the advice I give you: if anybody says you have a right to something, you actually don’t,” Scott said.

Florida: Committee backing felon voting rights amendment adds $500K in July | Florida Politics

The political committee backing a ballot initiative to automatically restore voting rights to nonviolent felons brought in over $500,000 last month. “Floridians for a Fair Democracy” received $250,000 of the July haul from the American Civil Liberties Union, with another $150,000 coming from the The Advocacy Fund, a San Francisco-based group that funds a variety of progressive causes across the country. The remaining $100,000 in contributions came in from Robert Wolthius, a San Francisco software engineer.

Alabama: Judge blocks motion to immediately restore voting rights of many felons | AL.com

A federal judge turned down an advocacy group’s request that Alabama swiftly reinstate many recently convicted felons’ voting rights and take immediate steps to educate people about the impact of a new state law that restores access to the ballot for tens of thousands of felons. Chief District Judge W. Keith Watkins denied a request for preliminary injunction in a lawsuit against the state brought on behalf of 10 Alabama citizens by the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. “Plaintiffs have not met their high burden for obtaining a mandatory preliminary injunction,” Watkins wrote in his Friday opinion. “They have failed to demonstrate that any of the preliminary injunction factors weighs in their favor.”

Florida: ACLU investing millions of dollars in Florida to restore ex-felons’ voting rights | The Washington Post

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has stepped up its political engagement as its Trump-era membership has swelled, is getting behind a campaign to end Florida’s felon disenfranchisement law by changing the state Constitution. The decision will put substantial financial and activist resources behind an ongoing campaign to put a “Voter Restoration Amendment” on the November 2018 ballot. “It’s going to be at least [a] $5 million commitment, maybe more,” said Faiz Shakir, the ACLU’s national political director, in an interview. “We’ll build through the end of the year, and to get the signatures we need to get on the ballot, we’re looking at a million.”

Alabama: Federal Judge Says Alabama Doesn’t Have To Tell Felons They May Now Be Able To Vote | HuffPost

Alabama election officials don’t have to immediately educate impacted people about a change in state voting qualifications that clarified tens of thousands of felons have the right to vote, a federal judge ruled Friday. The ruling came in response to a request from lawyers from the Campaign Legal Center, on behalf of 10 voters over a law that prohibited anyone who committed a “felony of moral turpitude” from voting. In May, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed a law defining exactly which offenses constituted a crime of moral turpitude, earning widespread praise. But Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) told HuffPost in June the state wouldn’t undertake any effort to target people affected by the change and let them know they’re now eligible to vote.

Alabama: State clashes with advocacy group in federal court over felony disenfranchisement suit | AL.com

Lawyers for the state of Alabama sparred Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Montgomery with attorneys representing a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit over issues related to Alabama’s felony disenfranchisement law. The hearing centered on a request by the Campaign Legal Center, a voting rights advocacy group, that Chief District Judge W. Keith Watkins force the state to take steps to educate thousands of convicted felons that they may be eligible to vote under a new state law. The organization is also asking Watkins to force the state to automatically add to the voting rolls several thousand convicted felons who applied to register to vote in recent years but were denied that opportunity, yet are now eligible to regain the franchise under the new law. “An issue will be ordered forthwith,” Watkins said at the conclusion of the hearing, without offering a specific timeframe for a ruling on the Campaign Legal Center’s request for a preliminary injunction, which was initially filed June 30.

Alabama: Group suing to force Alabama to add thousands of convicted felons to state voting rolls | AL.com

Alabama state voting rolls show that more than 66,000 convicted felons lost the right to vote under the state’s felony disenfranchisement law, many of whom may now be eligible to regain the right to vote under a new state law. And a nonprofit is now asking the state to automatically register several thousand former felons who applied but were denied the opportunity to vote. The Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based voting rights advocacy group, heads to U.S. District Court in Montgomery Tuesday afternoon for a hearing on a motion the organization filed June 30 on behalf of 10 plaintiffs.

Editorials: America steals votes from felons. Until it stops, our democracy will be weakened | Russ Feingold/The Guardian

In the middle of the hot summer, citizens will gather this week in Florida to champion a ballot initiative to end the state’s permanent felony disenfranchisement. As we face the daily jaw-dropping revelations about the Trump campaign and administration’s actions, keeping our focus on restoring legitimacy to our elections and our democracy has never been more important, and ending the historic wrong of felony disenfranchisement absolutely must be part of our agenda. It seems unlikely that the Trump-Pence “electoral integrity” commission will touch this important issue, and any commission that ignores it isn’t serious about the legitimacy of our elections. The right to vote is the most fundamental right of any democracy, granting it legitimacy as a means of government by instilling power in the people and not in politicians. It ensures “consent of the governed” and holds government accountable to the people: not law-abiding people, or moral people, or any other qualifier, but the people.

Florida: Thousands wait decades to regain the right to vote | Tampa Bay Times

Adam McCracken has a Ph.D., practices psychology in Orlando and is married with two sons. But for 25 years, the state of Florida said he couldn’t be a full-fledged citizen because of a long-ago drug conviction. McCracken served 10 months in a federal prison and five years on probation for possession with intent to distribute LSD. It was a serious mistake. It happened in 1991. He was 21. The case is so old that a Google search turns up nothing. The state of Florida allows McCracken to practice psychology. But he can’t vote. A law-abiding citizen for 26 years, he wants to bury his past. But the state won’t let him.

Alabama: ‘Restoration clinics’ to help felons register to vote under new Alabama law | AL.com

In March 1965, Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma served as the starting line of the two famous marches toward Montgomery that propelled the voting rights movement into the national consciousness. Four months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, ushering in a new era of increased access to the polls for African-Americans and other minorities across the South and beyond. On Saturday, a new voting rights effort kicked off inside that historic church, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke and Selma marchers nursed their wounds after being beaten by state troopers near the Edmund Pettus Bridge 52 years ago.

National: Millions of American adults are not allowed to vote — and they could change history | Business Insider

An estimated 6.1 million American adults were not allowed to vote in the 2016 election because they had a felony conviction on their record. Most had already served their sentences and returned to their communities. The majority of US states take away felons’ voting rights, occasionally for life. This disenfranchisement affects an estimated one in 40 adult Americans, or 2.5% of the total US voting-age population, according to The Sentencing Project, a group that advocates criminal-justice reform. That number is greater than the entire population of Missouri, and it’s the largest single group of American citizens who are barred by law from participating in elections.

Alabama: Group wants Alabama to educate voters about new voting law | Associated Press

A voting rights group has asked a federal judge to force Alabama to tell people that they could be eligible to vote after previously being disqualified for a felony conviction. U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins on Wednesday scheduled a July 25 hearing on the Campaign Legal Center’s injunction request. The Campaign Legal Center last week asked Watkins to require the state to implement an education campaign and take other steps, after lawmakers approved legislation clarifying which felonies cause a person to lose voting rights. The group also asked the state to reinstate eligible voters and disclose all voter registration applicants and voter registrants who were denied the right to vote on the basis of conviction in the past two years.

Florida: Push to restore Florida felon voting rights gains steam, but obstacles remain | Orlando Sentinel

Desmond Meade of Orlando has traveled from the Panhandle to Miami, all for the cause of restoring voting rights to 1.6 million non-violent ex-felons such as himself. But there is so much more to do. “I’ve put over 150,000 miles on my car,” said Meade, the head of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. “Whether it’s the rural parts of the state or the urban centers, the message is the same. … Second chances. That’s what it’s all about.” Meade, a former addict convicted on drug and firearm charges in 2001 who later earned a law degree, successfully gathered more than 70,000 verified signatures for his petition to place an amendment to the Florida constitution, which then triggered a review by the state Supreme Court. But despite the successful hearing, in which the court allowed the process to proceed, Meade and his group still have a momentous challenge ahead.

Alabama: Registering felons to vote in jail: How a new Alabama law impacts voting rights | AL.com

Spencer Trawick lost the right to vote when he was convicted of felony third-degree burglary for breaking into a Dothan house in 2015. As an 18-year-old at the time, he had registered to vote only months before he got in trouble, so he was disappointed to learn that he had been barred from casting a ballot in Alabama. But on Monday, Trawick filled out a registration form while inside the Dothan City Jail with the help of Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, a civil rights advocate who has been registering inmates to vote for more than a decade. “You’re registered to vote, man! You’re a full citizen now,” Glasgow told Trawick after he filled out a voter registration form supplied by the Dothan pastor. “You can say, ‘All right, I [am] a citizen!'”

Louisiana: Civil rights groups fight to restore ex-felon voting rights | The Louisiana Weekly

Two civil rights groups have joined forces to battle a 2017 trial court ruling that allows the State of Louisiana to deny voting rights to more than 70,000 of its residents. On June 13, The Advancement Project, a civil rights and racial justice program based in Washington D.C., announced their intention to file an appeal in the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the First Circuit on behalf of the New Orleans-based non-profit organization Voice of the Experienced (VOTE). The appeal challenges a March 2017 decision by 19th Judicial District Judge Tim Kelley in which he, apparently somewhat reluctantly, upheld current laws that prohibit ex-felons on probation or parole from voting.

Alabama: New law more clearly defines which felons can lose their voting rights | WRBL

A new Alabama law now allows some convicted felons to earn back the right to vote. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed he bill into law in May, reversing the more than century-old rule. While state lawmakers could not decide how to spend nearly $1 billion on prison reform, they could all agree on one thing. After 116 years, Alabama lawmakers decided it was time to let several criminals have a second chance to make their voices heard. The defining, unanimous push behind state Sen. Mike Jones’ (R-AL, District 92) bill ultimately changed a law dating back to 1901. Rep. Chris Blackshear (R-AL, District 80) says the new law specifically lists more than 40 felonies that would automatically strip criminals of voting rights.

Editorials: If you’ve done your time, you should get to vote | Jason Kander/Sun Sentinel

On Nov. 8, 2016, we saw what will probably become one of the most consequential elections in American history, yet one in 10 voting age Floridians was unable to cast a ballot. That’s because Florida is one of only three states in the country — along with Iowa and Kentucky — where any felony conviction results in a lifetime ban on voting. The result? More than 1.6 million Floridians — equal to the populations of Orlando, Jacksonville, and Miami combined — are prevented from voting for the rest of their lives. This ban affects Democrats and Republicans alike, but disproportionately affects African-Americans; one third of the people facing a lifetime voting ban are African-American, who make up just 16 percent of the statewide population. There’s only one way that people can restore their right to vote — a process called clemency that is costly and takes years.

Louisiana: Civil rights group appeals voting ban for 70,000 Louisiana felons on parole, probation | The Times-Picayune

The legal battle over the voting rights of more 70,000 Louisiana residents on probation or parole will continue as civil rights groups announced Tuesday (June 13) their intention to appeal a state court’s ruling denying ex-offenders that right. The Advancement Project, a national civil rights and racial justice organization based in Washington, D.C., filed notice with the Louisiana 4th Circuit Court of Appeal of their intention to challenge a March 13 decision by 19th Judicial District Judge Tim Kelley in Baton Rouge. Kelley rejected a 2016 lawsuit seeking to restore voting rights of people on probation or parole for felony crimes, saying that, while he believed it to be unfair, it is legal under the state constitution to deny convicted felons that right, according to the Associated Press.

Editorials: Virginia’s breakthrough on rectifying an enormous injustice | The Washington Post

Overcoming bitter opposition from Republican lawmakers, Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia has largely rectified an enormous, archaic injustice: the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of former felons — about half of them African Americans — whose debt to society has been paid, in many cases decades ago. After prevailing in state courts, Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, was able to assert his power under the state constitution and has so far restored the vote to more than 156,000 ex-convicts. By the time his four-year term in office ends in January, he is on pace to have restored rights (including the right to serve on juries) to at least another 5,000 former felons. It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of the governor’s action, which he himself called his “proudest achievement” in office. His recent predecessors, all recognizing the injustice of indefinite suspension of civil rights for people who had completed their sentences, had each taken steps to expand rights restoration — particularly the man who immediately preceded him, former governor Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican former prosecutor.