Florida will restore the voting rights of 125,000 felons.
I have to say, this business of permanently depriving convicts of the vote always bugged the crap out of me. If a law is unjust, or if the law is unjustly administered, disenfranchising the people most affected by it would be a great way to keep that from ever changing. I suppose people are worried about the converse: felons might vote themselves treatment that's too lenient. But really, if lawbreakers should reach that critical a mass, it suggests that the social consensus isn't behind certain laws anyway. Think Prohibition, or those recently overturned sodomy statutes.
Posted by Camassia at July 24, 2003 03:51 PM | TrackBackI am glad Florida is moving in the right direction, but this story states :
"The system drew international attention during the bitter dispute over the 2000 presidential election, when some Florida voters claimed they weren't allowed to cast ballots because they were mistaken for convicted felons."
The words "some" and "claimed" are very misleading...
http://www.afn.org/~iguana/archives/2001_09/20010909.html
Are they restoring the voting rights of the estimated 8,000 to 11,000 voters whose rights, we now KNOW, were revoked "erroneously" before the 2000 elections?
It seems to me the AP is usually very selective in it's presentations.
Posted by: David on July 25, 2003 02:25 PMI suspect that they are restoring the voting rights of all the people who were erroneously removed before the 2000 election, but they are sticking to their story that they were all "felons" to save face.
Posted by: Joel on July 26, 2003 07:25 PM