PATRIOT: What he (Bar) also dosen't tell you it (the Florida law barring convicted felons from voting) is for incarcerated felons.
BAR: Completely false.
Convicted felons in Florida and 12 other states are barred for life from voting in that state. They are also barred for life from owning a firearm, or legally working in a list of over 100 professions.
I work with released felons to help them get their rights restored via an extremely cumbersome process here in Florida.
And the word cumbersome is a generous adjective.
Last year over 40,000 released felons applied for voting rights restoration and less than 200 were approved by Governor Jeb Bush. This percentage has been in effect during all six years of his term.
Oh, it's not exclusive to JEB! Previous Florida governors (all Democrats except for only one other in past 140 years) allowed an equally low percentage of applicants to be approved.
As for the claims I made about Katherine Harris, it will take a few minutes, but that is one of the most easily cited stories from 2000 I can imagine.
There's no question it happened as I described. The only difference is JEB!s and Harris' claims that the list mistakes were 100% accidental.
Stay tuned on that one, but let no one mistake Pat's comment about incarcerated felons being the only ones barred from voting.
In addition to the 13 states with lifetime bans (most have NO restoration process), there are about an equal number of others who do indeed bar incarcerated felons and in some states, ANYONE incarcerated from voting. In that subset of states, (such as Ohio) right to vote is automatic upon release, but our surveys with released felons in Ohio demonstrate that more than half ignorantly believe they are indeed barred.
The state - Ohio in this case - does little or nothing to dissuade this ignorance, which should be no surprise to either party.
BAR: Completely false.
Convicted felons in Florida and 12 other states are barred for life from voting in that state. They are also barred for life from owning a firearm, or legally working in a list of over 100 professions.
I work with released felons to help them get their rights restored via an extremely cumbersome process here in Florida.
And the word cumbersome is a generous adjective.
Last year over 40,000 released felons applied for voting rights restoration and less than 200 were approved by Governor Jeb Bush. This percentage has been in effect during all six years of his term.
Oh, it's not exclusive to JEB! Previous Florida governors (all Democrats except for only one other in past 140 years) allowed an equally low percentage of applicants to be approved.
As for the claims I made about Katherine Harris, it will take a few minutes, but that is one of the most easily cited stories from 2000 I can imagine.
There's no question it happened as I described. The only difference is JEB!s and Harris' claims that the list mistakes were 100% accidental.
Stay tuned on that one, but let no one mistake Pat's comment about incarcerated felons being the only ones barred from voting.
In addition to the 13 states with lifetime bans (most have NO restoration process), there are about an equal number of others who do indeed bar incarcerated felons and in some states, ANYONE incarcerated from voting. In that subset of states, (such as Ohio) right to vote is automatic upon release, but our surveys with released felons in Ohio demonstrate that more than half ignorantly believe they are indeed barred.
The state - Ohio in this case - does little or nothing to dissuade this ignorance, which should be no surprise to either party.
Here's a transcript of the BBC News report by Greg Palast from early 2001. At that time he references a list of 58,000 voters who were 95% NOT felons, but the list showed them as such.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1174115.stm
Here's another look at the same story, also from Palast. This item was named Salon.com's Story of the Year for 2000.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=55&row=2
Key excerpt:
In the process, however, the list invariably targets a minority population in Florida, where 31 percent of all black men cannot vote because of a ban on felons. In compiling a list by looking at felons from other states, Florida could, in the process, single out citizens who committed felons in other states but, after serving their time or successfully petitioning the courts, had their voting rights returned to them. According to Florida law, felons can vote once their voting rights have been reinstated.
And if this unfairly singled out minorities, it unfairly handicapped Gore: In Florida, 93 percent of African-Americans voted for the vice president.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1174115.stm
Here's another look at the same story, also from Palast. This item was named Salon.com's Story of the Year for 2000.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=55&row=2
Key excerpt:
In the process, however, the list invariably targets a minority population in Florida, where 31 percent of all black men cannot vote because of a ban on felons. In compiling a list by looking at felons from other states, Florida could, in the process, single out citizens who committed felons in other states but, after serving their time or successfully petitioning the courts, had their voting rights returned to them. According to Florida law, felons can vote once their voting rights have been reinstated.
And if this unfairly singled out minorities, it unfairly handicapped Gore: In Florida, 93 percent of African-Americans voted for the vice president.
