Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Felons may vote while their case against Florida continues, judge decides

Florida felon voting

Erica Racz registers in Fort Myers, Fla., in January 2019 after a referendum restoring voting rights to felons. Now a federal judge has broadened who may register after prison.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

An estimated 1.4 million freed Florida felons may start registering to vote, a federal judge has ruled.

Tuesday's decision by District Judge Robert Hinkle is a potential watershed in the two-year fight over the future political rights of those who have been released from prison in the nation's biggest battleground state.

If it survives an appeal, which seems likely given several previous rulings in the dispute, then felons could vote in the Aug. 18 primaries and in the presidential election — capping the biggest single voting rights expansion in modern American history.


The new voters would also have the potential to decide a nationally close presidential contest. Florida's 29 electoral votes have been highly contested for two decades and now loom as the biggest prize that could be realistically claimed by either President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee after Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out. Wednesday.

Trump prevailed last time by a little more than 1 percentage point, or about 120,000 votes out of 9 million cast.

Florida voters decided overwhelmingly in 2018 to give back the franchise to felons (except murderers and sex offenders) once they completed probation and parole. Months later, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill he'd pushed through the Republican Legislature requiring them to first pay all fines, court costs and restitution — a prohibitive financial burden for most of them.

Civil rights and voting rights groups sued on behalf of convicted felons, characterizing the financial requirements as an unconstitutional poll tax akin to what was used to keep millions of black voters from the polls for much of the 20th century.

The average amount owed is estimated to be $1,500, according to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

Hinkle blocked the state law in October, but that ruling only applied to the 17 plaintiffs in the lawsuits. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision and the full appeals court declined to review that ruling. The appeals panel said the state "may not erect a wealth barrier" to citizens who want to register to vote.

Complicating matters has been an inability of the state to come up with a plan to give former felons reliable information about what they owe before they may register. That's because "the state's records of financial obligations are a mess," Hinkle wrote Tuesday.

A trial of the lawsuits is still scheduled to begin in three weeks.

Read More

Defend Democracy Against Bombardments on the Elections Front –A Three-Part Series
Voted printed papers on white surface

Defend Democracy Against Bombardments on the Elections Front –A Three-Part Series

In Part 1, Pat Merloe examines the impact of the political environment, the necessity of constitutional defense against power-grabbing, and the detrimental effects of proof of citizenship on voting.

Part One: Bellicose Environment, Constitutional Infringements, and Disenfranchisement by Proof of Citizenship

The intense MAGA barrage against genuine elections, leading up to 2024’s voting, paused briefly after Election Day - not because there was diminished MAGA hostility towards typically trustworthy processes and results, but mainly because Donald Trump won. Much valuable work took place to protect last year’s polls, and much more will be needed as we head toward 2026, 2028, and beyond.

Keep ReadingShow less
Rear view diverse voters waiting for polling place to open
SDI Productions/Getty Images

Open Primaries Topic Creates a Major Tension for Independents

Open primaries create fine opportunities for citizens who are registered as independents or unaffiliated voters to vote for either Democrats or Republicans in primary elections, but they tacitly undermine the mission of those independents who are opposed to both major parties by luring them into establishment electoral politics. Indeed, independents who are tempted to support independent candidates or an independent political movement can be converted to advocates of our duopoly if their states have one form or another of Open Primaries.

Twenty U.S. states currently have Open Primaries for at least one political party at the presidential, congressional, and state levels, including Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. At least 15 states conduct "semi-closed" primaries, a middle position in which unaffiliated voters still have an option to choose to vote in one of the major party primaries. 

Keep ReadingShow less
Voter registration
The national voter registration form is now available in 20 non-English languages, including three Native American languages.
SDI Productions

With Ranked Choice Voting in NYC, Women Win

As New York prepares to choose its next city council and mayor in primaries this week, it’s worth remembering that the road to gender equality in the nation’s largest city has been long and slow.

Before 2021, New York’s 51-member council had always been majority male. Women hadn’t even gotten close to a majority. The best showing had been 18 seats, just a tick above 35 percent.

Keep ReadingShow less
Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

"On Las Vegas Boulevard" sign.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash. Unplash+ license obtained by IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths.

Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

CARSON CITY, NEV. - A surprise last-minute bill to open primary elections to Nevada’s largest voting bloc, registered unaffiliated voters, moved quickly through the state legislature and was approved by a majority of lawmakers on the last day of the legislative session Monday.

The bill, AB597, allows voters not registered with a political party to pick between a Republican and Democratic primary ballot in future election cycles. It does not apply to the state’s presidential preference elections, which would remain closed to registered party members.

Keep ReadingShow less