By Barrington Salmon
In November 2018, 64.5 percent of Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment that would automatically restore voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians weighed down by felony convictions but who had completed the terms of their sentences.
However, that hard-earned victory by social justice activist Desmond Meade and groups including the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice was short-lived. Why? Because by that summer, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican lawmakers pulled a bait-and-switch when the Legislature passed a bill, which DeSantis eagerly signed.
The bill, SB 7066, placed one more hurdle before this much maligned constituency, demanding that they pay all their legal obligations, including restitution, court costs, fines, and fees in full before being allowed to vote.
A federal trial court initially ruled the “pay-to-vote” system unconstitutional but U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit — one of the most conservative courts in the country — reversed the lower court’s decision.
In 2023, the problem remains unsolved because Republicans legislators don’t view resolution as a priority and, as has become common, have ignored the will of the 5.1 million Floridians who voted for Amendment 4 in 2018.
Advocates have been fighting to ensure that returning citizens are not permanently disenfranchised, especially with evidence from one of the lawsuits indicating that most with felony convictions had some unpaid fines or fees after completing the other parts of their sentence.
Critics characterize the demand to square the financial payment requirement as a modern day “poll tax.”
Poll taxes were one of several tools once used by segregationists in Southern states to limit African Americans’ voting rights. Targeting potential Black voters and implementing calculated obstacles is favorite tactic, beginning post-Reconstruction and extending through segregation and the Jim Crow era.
Reconstruction 2.0
Republicans in 2023 are on a campaign to emulate what occurred during Reconstruction by disenfranchising African Americans, engaging in severe gerrymandering so that the odds are turn in their favor in 2024.
Their harsh and uncompromising position on abortion is costing them support and has led to losses in primaries. But the GOP’s political strategy is explained by former President Donald Trump, who has said the quiet part out loud: Republicans will never again win elections if democratic reforms make voting easier.
Voter suppression and subversion exploded in 2013 after the Supreme Court gutted a portion of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). Within days of the ruling, cities and states enacted a wave of voter discrimination laws intended to restrict the rights of people of color, those with disabilities, students, and others most likely to vote Democratic.
North Carolina illustrates the strategy. In 2016, the NAACP and other voting rights groups won a three-year legal battle against the state when federal judges struck down House Bill 589. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit invalidated most of that 2013 law, enacted the day after the Supreme Court’s ruling. The Circuit Court criticized provisions it said deliberately “target[ed] African-Americans with almost surgical precision” using “one of the largest restrictions of the [voting] franchise in modern North Carolina history.”
The circuit judges said lawmakers sought to “impose cures for problems that did not exist.”
The law, dubbed the “Monster Bill,” included a strict ID requirement and an assortment of additional voting restrictions, significantly shortening early voting; eliminating same-day registration; outlawing the counting of out-of-precinct provisional ballots; tossing out a pre-registration program for 16- and 17-year-olds; shuttering one-third of early voting locations; and making it easier to challenge voters.
Republicans nationally say they’ve imposed tough voter-ID measures to prevent what they characterize as widespread voter fraud. But that claim isn’t supported by the facts. A Loyola University Law School study of voting patterns between 2000 and 2014 found only 31 credible instances of voter fraud out of 1 billion votes cast. And a 2015 Brennan Center report found that the challenges are primarily “targeted at voters of color, student voters, and voters with disabilities.”
Furthermore, the Brennan report’s authors found, many states’ laws challenging voters “are susceptible to abuse.” The voter ID and other restrictions now law in almost 24 states have had the desired effort of diminishing African American turnout, the report said.
‘Key civil rights issue’
The disenfranchisement of returning citizens is “one of the key civil rights issues of our time,” said Leah Aden, deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in an CNBC News report.
Despite Republican statements to the contrary, Aden said, in 2006 Congress compiled documents totaling more than 15,000 pages showing that voter suppression still exists across much of the United States. In 2019, 30 states, including Florida, had laws that required ex-offenders to pay at least some of their fines and fees before they could vote.
Meade — president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition and architect of the largest expansion of voting rights in 50 years – said in an interview that blocking the amendment is “an obstruction of democracy … and larger than a poll tax. … It is our state actually doing something to block the expansion of democracy, which is a sin.”
The sin, Meade explained, is the state forcing citizens to choose between putting food on their kid’s table and voting or paying rent or voting.
But rather than continuing to wait on politicos, Meade and fellow activists have been raising money to help pay outstanding fines and fees of those entangled in this legal web. Basketball star Michael Jordan, Meade said, donated $500,000 to his organization, and basketball superstar LeBron James through his More Than a Vote project donated $100,000.
Meade received $16 million from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It will help pay the fines and fees of almost 32,000 Black and Hispanic voters in Florida with felony convictions and financial obligations.
Meanwhile, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which organized the Amendment 4 campaign, has used money donated by celebrities and other donors to pay almost $27 million in outstanding court fines and fees for close to 40,000 returning citizens, according to The Hill.
Journalist Barrington Salmon lived and wrote in Florida (Miami and Tallahassee) for almost 20 years. He is a 2017 Annenberg National Fellow (University of Southern California) who currently freelances for publications, including the National Newspaper Publishers Association/Black Press USA, Trice Edney Newswire and The Washington Informer. Salmon lives in the nation’s capital and can be heard on his video blog “Speak Freely with Barrington Salmon and NNPA’s “Let It Be Known.”
Melly C says
Allow anonymous drop boxes, unmonitored by anyone! Seriously? SMH…oh, SO insidious, that it’s not allowed! Oh, the humanity!
Your gaslight needs adjusted…
Pierre Tristam says
Melly, please provide an example of drop box fraud that you know of, ever–just one: one single example–in Flagler. Or Florida. Then we’ll talk gas.
Ed says
Agree. Instead of manning boxes, a few strategically placed video cameras would provide the assurances needed.
With that said, Florida makes at home (mail in voting) about as easy as possible.
I personally do not believe any voter in Florida regardless who they are have any problems with voting except for laziness and callousness.
Who doesn’t have some type of I.D.? Can’t get in a federal building or collect any public assistance without one. Can’t fly, rent a car, check into a legitimate hotel or a hundred other things.
The sin is voting or food…omg really? Talk about nonsense.
joe says
Exactly- you beat me to it, Pierre!
The fact that this LIE has been able to survive so long with NO evidence is truly depressing.
Sherry says
@melly. . . evidence please. . . or is it that you do not believe in credible facts, but only in what FOX tells you to believe? I really would like to see your credible evidence of drop box fraud,
Jim says
If only people would make decisions based on factual information and not innuendo from news services that have a proven track record of lying to their audience!!!
Even if you “sneak” a ballot into the drop box, it has to be validated before it is counted. This requires a verified signature on that ballot. So I guess if you think “anonymous drop boxes” are the root of voter fraud, you must also believe the purveyors of this conspiracy are also capable of forging so many signatures that they can swing an election. Or you think the poll workers are so corrupt that they’ll just accept the ballots without verification. You’re entitled to your opinion. However, wouldn’t it be better for all of us if you took the time to verify your views before claiming this is a voting issue?
Based on facts…. Joe Biden won the last presidential election by the same number of electoral votes as Donald Trump had in the prior election – an election he claimed to win in and “landslide” so I guess Joe also won in a landslide! Also, Joe won the popular vote by a significant margin as well. Look that up. Those are facts!
I hope you decide to go outside your comfort zone and actually find factual data to support your views. If you can, good for you. If you can’t, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your opinions and positions. The future of our democracy depends on us doing the right thing based on facts…..
Bill C says
Perpetuating the “Stop the Steal” lie is the real gaslighting. Trump is the one who can’t be trusted to protect our freedom. He even wants to get rid of the Constitution. On Dec. 4 2022, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
Like the saying goes- when someone tells you who they are believe them. If the Constitution ever got in his way he would get rid of it.
Laurel says
Yeah, Trump cried about “voter fraud” as early as 2016! He must be psychic, or own a crystal ball. Was he not just setting his fans up? Another funny thing about that is he has no complaints about states that did vote for him. So, there must be massive fraud (with no evidence) only in states that did not vote for him. Huh!
CELIA PUGLIESE says
Got that right Pierre!
Celia M Pugliese says
We spent energy, money and will in the referendum that passed by 64.5 percent of Florida voters that approved a constitutional amendment that would automatically restore voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians weighed down by felony convictions but who had completed the terms of their sentences. And GOP run Tallahasse ignores it!
robjr says
Title should read.
Voter-Suppression Is Essential to GOP’s Edge!!
Bill says
You communist liars never give up to your lies and hate
Atwp says
To all people stay out of trouble, especially people of color. The Republicans are trying to make it harder for crime free African Americans to vote, you know they will make it impossible for people of crime to vote. I’m going to vote because I have that right to vote, I will not let Desantis stop me from voting. O yeah I’m a voting Democrat.
Pogo says
@The wealthy will do anything for mankind but get off its back
“Mike Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion on four-month presidential campaign according to filing
The former New York City mayor’s spending dwarfed the rest of the field.
ByBenjamin Siegel and Soo Rin Kim
April 20, 2020, 7:21 PM
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion on roughly 100-day presidential run, according to a new Federal Election Commission filing.
Bloomberg poured more than $1 billion of his own money into his White House bid, which featured a national campaign operation with roughly 2,400 staff.
By the end of March, the campaign committee reported spending more than $1 billion of that money, including $158 million just in the month of March alone…”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mike-bloomberg-spent-billion-month-presidential-campaign-filing/story?id=70252435
What was it all for — anyway? He could have freed so many.
For a trillion or so, a clue:
“One Supreme Court Case Could Mess Up Chunks of the Tax Code
Justices will debate the meaning of ‘income’ under the 16th Amendment
By Richard Rubin and Jess Bravin
Dec. 3, 2023 9:00 am ET
WASHINGTON—A case that could punch holes in the federal tax code heads to the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The court will hear arguments in Moore v. U.S., which challenges a piece of the 2017 tax law that imposed a one-time levy on profits that companies had accumulated outside the U.S. But its implications could reach much further, providing the justices an opportunity to define what Congress can tax under the Constitution—and what it can’t…”
““This is the beginning of the story, not the end. And it could be a long story,” he said. “The court will be writing on a very, very blank slate.””
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/one-supreme-court-case-could-mess-up-chunks-of-the-tax-code-680a9ba6
Our lives — their games.
And so it goes.
jake says
There is NO voter suppression in Florida. If you can’t vote, it’s because you choose too.
The Sour Kraut says
When you can’t win…cheat.
GOP
Melly C says
That works both ways.
Funny, I don’t see The Left around here, jumping all over those who accuse The Right of cheating. I see plenty of The Left, accusing Trumpsky and all his little Swamp-compromised pals of it. Where’s *their* proof? Oh, I’m sorry, they don’t have any yet. Long as Orange Man is a Free Man, y’all are grasping at just as many straws as The Right is, thinking he’s going to Save This Country. LOL! What a hoot….
Pitiful, the brainwashing and the gaslighting and how so many of you just lap it up. Nauseating. Neither “side” has your best interest at heart and the sooner you admit it and understand it, the better off the rest of us will be. So, SO sick of seeing all the Partisans dutifully tap-dancing to Their Side. Neither side is representative of most people, and that is a fact that none of you will ever explain away.
Quick, now, what am I, a Rightie or a Leftie? When does it occur to ANY of you how very little that actually matters?
Endless dark money says
Florida try nationally voter suppression is the only way they can keep their corporate overlords happy and polluting. Republicons don’t care about people only large corporate donors like shell, ExxonMobil, and basically any company that wants to pollute and not be regulated. Voter suppression and gerrymandered maps has worked out for them so far.