Florida 2020: Voter Turnout Still a Must, Get Everyone Registered, Even If Republicans Are Being Assholes About It

One of my biggest personal interests in politics is civic engagement AKA voter registration and getting everybody to vote every election to get their voice hear.

I was thrilled in 2018 when my home state of Florida passed a state referendum amendment easing the right for ex-felons who've served their time to regain their power to vote. Previously there was a convoluted and unfair request process through the Governor's office that saw a decreased disinterest - especially with Republican governors - in granting voting rights to people who should be encouraged to re-engage our society. As long as the ex-felons served for non-violent crimes (violent ones had to stick to the petition process) they would get that right automatically.

So the state legislature and Governor - Republicans all - decided to be assholes about it and passed a law in 2019 curbing that Amendment by requiring the ex-felons had to repay all fines and debts - essentially a goddamn POLL TAX - before they could get re-registered. Considering 1) many ex-felons are poor to begin with and 2) those fees could range to thousands of dollars, this would have stopped them from regaining their civil rights.

All because Republicans are terrified of point 3) many ex-felons lean toward voting Democratic... and the number of them doing so would clearly tilt the partisan demographics of Florida a solid Blue for 2020.

Funny thing about that: The Republicans may have been too clever by half. Per Mark Joseph Stern's article in Slate:

After Floridians approved an initiative to restore voting rights to approximately 1.4 million people with felony convictions, Republican lawmakers immediately moved to sabotage the historic effort. The GOP-controlled legislature passed a law along party lines that effectively required a poll tax from a majority of those poised to regain their right to vote. The GOP’s brazenly partisan measure, however, appears to be backfiring. Democratic counties are taking advantage of a compromise buried in the statute to give residents their voting rights. Meanwhile, Republican counties are taking a hard line against suffrage—meaning a substantial majority of Floridians who do manage to register to vote are likely to be Democrats.

For more than a year, Florida’s politicians have been embroiled in a fight over Amendment 4, which 65 percent of Florida voters approved in 2018. Amendment 4 abolished a Jim Crow era law that permanently stripped the right to vote from anyone convicted of a felony. But Florida Republicans quickly kneecapped it, passing a bill that forced individuals to pay all fines and fees associated with their sentences before regaining their voting rights. This legislative assault on Amendment 4 threatened to take away the franchise from more than 1.1 million Floridians; the state is a pioneer of cash register justice, imposing a mind-boggling array of “user fees” on defendants to finance its criminal justice system.

Following immense backlash from Democrats and civil rights advocates, though, legislators added a conciliatory section to their bill. It allowed courts to modify “the original sentencing order to no longer require completion” of the initial sentence. In other words, courts can waive fines and fees imposed as part of a sentence. By doing so, courts can clear the way for former felons to complete their sentences and immediately become eligible to vote.

To implement this section, Florida’s four most populous counties created “rocket dockets” to waive fines and fees en masse. Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Hillsborough—which, together, make up more than a third of the state’s population—launched programs to identify individuals who owe fines and fees and fast-track their cases to the courts. A judge then waives their financial obligations (except restitution to victims) and provides them with a court order declaring their sentences complete. This order reestablishes their right to vote. Courts, prosecutors, and public defenders all support these programs, and celebrity activist John Legend helped to publicize them by sitting in on a “rocket docket” session. Local officials provide individuals with voter registration forms as soon as their fines and fees are waived...

..There is little doubt that GOP legislators opposed the amendment because they feared it would disproportionately enfranchise Democrats. But their bill has led to a bizarre system in which Democratic counties are reenfranchising their voters while Republican-majority counties are not. Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Hillsborough all overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. They are Democratic strongholds in a state with notoriously close elections. In 2016, Trump beat Clinton by about 113,000 votes. Meanwhile, Miami-Dade hopes to grant about 150,000 former felons the right to vote. The reenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters in primarily Democratic counties may very well swing the 2020 election...

This doesn't automatically mean the Dems win and the GOP loses. Voter turnout still matters, even in solid Blue counties (some of which will be the centers of massive Far Right disinformation and voter suppression efforts no matter what). Those voters - every single one who has a vested interest in key Democratic issues like affordable health care (still), better wages, an end to trumpian corruption - have to keep involved with early voting, absentee balloting, handling long lines at the precincts, and keeping up with oversight and counting results to make sure every ballot is counted fairly and accurately.

This is all what 2020 is about, Floridians: GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.

And for the Love of GOD, kick the cheating vote-suppressing Republicans out of every office we can.