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Voting rights advocates are complaining that Florida's voter registration forms are not clear that convicted felons who have completed their sentences, like Clarence Singleton, are automatically cleared to register and vote.
Florida voter forms still say felons cannot register to vote
Voting rights activists in Florida are complaining to election officials because they believe the state's voter registration forms are not clear that convicted felons who have completed their sentences can now register to vote.
This is the latest dispute over implementation of the Amendment 4 ballot initiative passed by 65 percent of Florida voters last fall, revising the state's constitution to automatically restore voting rights for convicted felons.
Florida's registration forms and online registration system state that felons "cannot register until your right to vote is restored" – a continuation of the language used on the form prior to approval of the amendment.
Elsewhere — and less prominently — the forms do note that voting rights are restored upon completion of all terms of a sentence including parole and probation "pursuant to section 4, Art. VI of the Florida Constitution."
That's the change made by the ballot initiative, but advocates argue not many people are going to understand the legal reference.
Common Cause of Florida, the League of Women Voters and others have written letters to the Florida Department of State complaining about how changes in the registration forms were handled.
The Florida Legislature already stirred controversy when it passed legislation to implement the voter initiative that requires that ex-felons pay all fines and fees in order to have their voting rights restored.
After that law was passed, officials discovered that it is difficult to determine whether a person has paid all the needed fines and fees because the information is maintained by a number of agencies.
A working group created to make recommendations to the Legislature on how that information should be collected met for the final time this week and is now working on a draft report.
In another related development, a hearing is scheduled for Monday at federal court in Florida on a request by several civil rights groups to temporarily block the legislation.
Advocates have equated the requirement with the now banned requirement that voters pay a poll tax. The poll tax was used, mainly in the South, to prevent poor, mostly black citizens from being able to register and vote.
- Florida's new restrictions on voting rights for citizens with felonies ... ›
- Law blocks most Florida felons from regaining voting rights - The ... ›
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Ballot measures are good democracy — but only if you can understand them
Marginal improvements have been made to help voters understand the questions posed to them on the ballot this November, a new study concludes, but such ballot measures still favor the college-educated — who represent a minority of the U.S. population.
This year voters in eight states will decide the fate of a collective 36 such propositions. In a study released Thursday, Ballotpedia assessed how easy it is to comprehend what each proposal would accomplish, concluding that the difficulty level had decreased compared with the referendums decided in the last off-year election of 2017 — but not by much.
In fact, according to a pair of well-established tests, 21 of the 36 ballot measures cannot be understood by the 40 percent of the voting-age population who never attended college.
Two states asking Supreme Court for permission to regulate Electoral College conduct
Colorado has become the second state to ask the Supreme Court to decide if states may legally bind their presidential electors to vote for the candidate who carried their state.
The issue of so-called faithless electors is the latest aspect of an increasingly heated debate about the virtues and flaws of the Electoral College that has blossomed, especially among progressive democracy reform advocates, now that two of the past five presidential winners (Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000) got to the Oval Office despite losing the national popular vote.