Florida voters approved a ballot measure Tuesday night that will restore voting rights to an estimated 1.4 million people with felony records in the critical swing state.
Florida was one of four states that impose lifetime bans on voting for people with felony records.
Virginia has a similar provision, but the last two governors have used their executive powers to restore voting rights of those affected.
Former offenders in Florida could petition the governor for clemency to have their voting rights restored, but in 2011 then-governor Rick Scott, who is running for the U.S. Senate this year, rewrote the rules, making Florida the toughest state in the U.S. for felons to regain their voting rights.
One out of every 13 African-Americans in the U.S. has lost their voting rights due to felony disenfranchisement laws, compared to one in every 56 non-black voters, the Sentencing Project report said.
Florida's felony disenfranchisement laws were, like those in many other states, a vestige of the its racist 19th century "Black Codes," which attempted to systematically criminalize freed slaves following the Civil War, and then bar them from voting.
"In the days and weeks ahead we will seek to work with newly elected Governor to ensure that Amendment 4 is implemented as intended by the Floridians who placed it on the ballot and voted to approve it-without delay and without imposing more burdens on the process to register to vote."
http://reason.com/blog/2018/11/06/florida-approves-ballot-amendment-to-res
Florida was one of four states that impose lifetime bans on voting for people with felony records.
Virginia has a similar provision, but the last two governors have used their executive powers to restore voting rights of those affected.
Former offenders in Florida could petition the governor for clemency to have their voting rights restored, but in 2011 then-governor Rick Scott, who is running for the U.S. Senate this year, rewrote the rules, making Florida the toughest state in the U.S. for felons to regain their voting rights.
One out of every 13 African-Americans in the U.S. has lost their voting rights due to felony disenfranchisement laws, compared to one in every 56 non-black voters, the Sentencing Project report said.
Florida's felony disenfranchisement laws were, like those in many other states, a vestige of the its racist 19th century "Black Codes," which attempted to systematically criminalize freed slaves following the Civil War, and then bar them from voting.
"In the days and weeks ahead we will seek to work with newly elected Governor to ensure that Amendment 4 is implemented as intended by the Floridians who placed it on the ballot and voted to approve it-without delay and without imposing more burdens on the process to register to vote."
http://reason.com/blog/2018/11/06/florida-approves-ballot-amendment-to-res
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