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felon disenfranchisement
Nebraska Supreme Court Orders Election Officials to Obey Law Letting Former Felons Vote
"This decision is a victory for Nebraskans, democracy, and the rule of law," said one ACLU attorney.
Oct 16, 2024
Democracy defenders on Wednesday welcomed a Nebraska Supreme Courtruling that orders state election officials to comply with a law allowing former felons to vote immediately after they complete their sentences instead of waiting two years.
Nebraska's unicameral Legislature voted 38-6 in favor of LB 20 on April 11. Although Republican Gov. Jim Pillen declined to sign the bill, the measure took effect the following week, as the Nebraska Constitution allows lawmakers to enact laws without gubernatorial consent five days after a bill's passage if the Legislature is still in session.
After allowing the Legislature to pass the law, Pillen explained that Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Secretary of State Bob Evnen—both Republicans—"have identified significant potential constitutional infirmities regarding the bill" and encouraged them to "promptly take such measures as are appropriate" to redress these purported flaws.
In July, Evnen ordered county election offices to stop registering former felons who have not received official pardons, claiming LB 20 is "unconstitutional."
The Nebraska Supreme Court justices did not rule on the law's constitutionality, as the state constitution requires five members of the tribunal to declare legislation unconstitutional.
"Because the requisite number of judges have not found that the statutory amendments are unconstitutional, we issue a peremptory writ of mandamus directing the secretary and the election commissioners to implement the statutory amendments immediately," the court's split decision states.
The ruling referred to Patty and Selma Bouvier—the chain-smoking twin sisters of Marge Simpson from TV's long-running animated series "The Simpsons"—in a swipe at Hilgers and Evnen for overstepping their authority by opining on the constitutionality of LB 20.
"Only the Nebraska Supreme Court declares statutes unconstitutional," the decision states. "The [five-justice] supermajority requirement is also well known. Patty and Selma at the Department of Motor Vehicles may not be constitutional scholars, but they know that they are expected to follow the law."
Plaintiff Gregory Spung of Ohama said that Wednesday's ruling left him feeling "ecstatic."
"For so long, I was uncertain if my voice would truly count under this law," he said. "Today's decision reaffirms the fundamental principle that every vote matters. It's a victory not just for me, but for thousands of Nebraskans who can now exercise their right to vote with confidence."
ACLU of Nebraska legal and policy counsel Jane Seu said: "This is justice. Given the sheer scale of disenfranchisement that this decision corrects, there is no question that it will be remembered as one of our state's most consequential voting rights decisions."
"For Nebraskans who have been caught up in this mess for the last few months, the key takeaway is this: If you are done with all terms of your sentence, you are eligible to vote, and there is now a court decision backing that up," Seu added. "Now is the time to know your rights, get registered, and make a plan to vote."
The ACLU—which along with the ACLU of Nebraska, Civic Nebraska, and the law firm Faegre Drinker sued on behalf of Nebraskans seeking ballot access under the new law—said that the voting rights of approximately 7,000 people hung in the balance.
As The Associated Press noted following Wednesday's ruling:
Many of them reside in Nebraska's Omaha-centered 2nd Congressional District, where both the race for president and the makeup of Congress could be in play. Nebraska overall is heavily Republican but is one of only two states—the other is Maine—that apportions its Electoral College votes by congressional district. The Omaha-area district has twice awarded its one vote to Democratic presidential candidates—to Barack Obama in 2008 and again to Joe Biden in 2020. In a 2024 presidential race shown by polling to be a dead heat, a single electoral vote could determine who wins.
"This decision is a victory for Nebraskans, democracy, and the rule of law," ACLU Voting Rights Project staff attorney Jonathan Topaz said of Wednesday's ruling.
"Secretary of State Evnen and Attorney General Hilgers attempted to overturn two decades of rights restoration law by executive fiat and re-disenfranchise thousands of Nebraska citizens heading into a presidential election," he continued. "We are grateful the Nebraska Supreme Court invalidated this lawless attempt to reinstate permanent felony disenfranchisement and are thrilled for the thousands of eligible Nebraska voters who will be able to cast ballots in November and beyond."
"We also urge the state to extend its voter registration deadline," Topaz added. "Thousands of Nebraskans have lost months to register due to the secretary's unlawful directive, and they should be allowed sufficient time to register to vote ahead of the November election."
Nebraska's online voter registration deadline is Friday. In-person registration ends October 25. Early voting in the state began on October 7.
As voter registration surges ahead of the November 5 contest between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, GOP federal and state lawmakers are trying to make it harder to vote.
In July, for example, U.S. House Republicans passed Rep. Chip Roy's (R-Texas) Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which would require proof of American citizenship to vote in federal elections. Republicans claim the bill is meant to fix the virtually nonexistent "problem" of noncitizen voter fraud.
State-level examples include legislation signed last year by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis limiting voter registration drives, with fines of up to $250,000 for violators.
Last week, the Sentencing Project, a decarceration advocacy group, published a report estimating that 4 million U.S. adults are ineligible to vote in November's election due to felony disenfranchisement, including a disproportionate number of people of color.
Earlier this year, a federal court struck down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction. Similar legal battles are playing out in other states. The Minnesota Supreme Court recently upheld a law signed in 2023 by Gov. Tim Walz—the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate—restoring former felons' voting rights upon completion of their sentences.
Last December, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermontintroduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote while behind bars.
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'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Courtreversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
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The Pro-Democracy Movement Fighting Back Against the GOP Nationwide Offers Hope for 2024
State-level progress on election protection, ballot access, and voting rights is a reflection of a basic reality documented in poll after poll: Voters want meaningful reforms to democracy.
Dec 19, 2023
Over the past few years, states across the country have passed laws that make voting more difficult and elections more vulnerable to partisan interference, and 2023 is no exception. But it is critical to remember that there is also flourishing pro-democracy movement that has pushed many states to make important strides in the opposite direction.
This past year, at least 24 states enacted over 50 laws that protect the freedom to vote, prevent attacks on the electoral process, crack down on gerrymandering, or strengthen campaign finance safeguards as of December 1, 2023. Yet state lawmakers cannot safeguard democracy on their own. Robust federal legislation is needed to ensure that democracy is protected across the country and that every voter has equal access to the ballot.
Among the most notable advances in 2023 was Minnesota’s passage of a transformative package of pro-voter reforms. Among them is automatic voter registration, bringing the total number of states with automatic voter registration to 23 plus the District of Columbia. This means that when eligible Minnesota residents interact with certain state agencies—including when applying for a driver’s license or state health insurance—they will automatically be registered to vote unless they choose to opt out. The legislation also allows 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, enacts new protections for election workers, and creates a permanent absentee voter list.
While state reforms are critical, they are not a substitute for federal legislation that would set baseline national standards to protect the freedom to vote and make other critical changes.
Minnesota lawmakers also passed legislation this year that restores voting rights for people convicted of a felony, instantly re-enfranchising over 50,000 Minnesotans on parole, probation, or community release—and countless more in the future.
Another closely divided Midwestern state, Michigan, made important advances. This year, lawmakers passed a package of legislation to implement Proposal 2, a pro-voter constitutional amendment that was approved by Michigan voters in 2022 with nearly 60% of the vote. (Proposal 2 is one of several pro-democracy amendments that Michigan voters approved with overwhelming margins in the past few years.)
Michigan voters now have nine days of early voting, improved absentee ballot options, a higher number of ballot drop boxes, and an expanded list of acceptable voter IDs. This reform will benefit the many voters who prefer to vote by mail, a trend that exploded in popularity during the pandemic and remains highly popular in the state.
Additionally, Michigan lawmakers passed legislation this year protecting election officials from harassment and another that automatically registers individuals to vote upon release from incarceration—the first state to offer such an immediate and automatic restoration of voting rights.
In New Mexico, the legislature passed a wide-ranging bill that restores voting rights to individuals with a felony conviction, establishes automatic voter registration, and added voting rights protections for Native Americans. It also made it so voters who want to vote by mail only have to opt-in once.
The Nevada legislature passed a series of pro-voter laws this year that were signed by the state’s Republican governor: one that improves ballot access for eligible incarcerated voters by requiring jails to better provide voting materials, another that standardizes the design of mail-in ballot return envelopes and clarifies electioneering rules, and one that make it easier to vote on Native American reservations.
In another notable development, Connecticut became the sixth state to establish a state-level Voting Rights Act. In recent years, states have passed their own versions of the Voting Rights Act to protect voting access for historically disenfranchised groups. This trend is in response to two Supreme Court rulings that gutted the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.
2023 also saw several states enact significant new campaign finance reforms. Minnesota improved campaign finance safeguards to boost transparency and deter foreign influence in elections. Almost 90% of Maine voters adopted new safeguards to prevent foreign governments and corporations from interfering in the state’s elections. And New York State’s groundbreaking small donor matching system went into effect, and over 150 candidates have already signed up to participate.
Important voting reforms are not exclusive to blue states, with many pro-democracy bills also passing in red and purple states this year. For example, Oklahoma codified protections for election officials, and Louisiana and Utah improved voting access for voters with disabilities. The divided Virginia legislature voted to ease absentee ballot requirements, a measure that was signed into law by a Republican governor. Lastly, an important win for direct democracy took place in Ohio, where 57% of voters rejected a proposal that would have increased the threshold required to pass citizen-initiated constitutional amendments from 50% to 60%.
This state-level progress is a reflection of a basic reality documented in poll after poll: Voters want meaningful reforms to democracy. And in 24 states this year, elected officials have responded, passing critical reforms that will improve the state of democracy for many Americans.
Ultimately though, while state reforms are critical, they are not a substitute for federal legislation that would set baseline national standards to protect the freedom to vote and make other critical changes. Access to the ballot box, secure election systems, fair district maps, and strong campaign finance laws are the basic safeguards needed to ensure we have a democracy that works for all Americans, regardless of where they live.
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Federal Court Strikes Down Mississippi's 'Jim Crow' Felon Disenfranchisement Law
"Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear national trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement."
Aug 04, 2023
A U.S. federal appellate court on Friday ruled that a Jim Crow-era Mississippi law permanently disenfranchising people with certain felony convictions is unconstitutional.
In a decision that can be appealed to the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel of the tribunal ruled 2-1 that Section 241 of Mississippi's 1890 Constitution "violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law."
Last August, the 5th Circuit affirmed Section 241 ,with dissenting Judge James E. Graves Jr., a Black Mississippian, lamenting that when his colleagues were "handed an opportunity to right a 130-year-old wrong, the majority instead upholds it."
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the ruling, prompting a scathing dissent from liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
"In the last 50 years, a national consensus has emerged among the state legislatures against permanently disenfranchising those who have satisfied their judicially imposed sentences and thus repaid their debts to society," Friday's ruling states. "Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear national trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement."
Friday's ruling is the result of a 2018 lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU on behalf of plaintiffs including Dennis Hopkins, who has been disenfranchised since 1998 due to a grand larceny conviction.
"In school, they teach our kids that everybody's vote counts, but no matter how I've lived for the past 20 years, I don't count, not my values or my experience," Hopkins said when the suit was filed. "I have paid Mississippi what I owe it in full, but I still can't cast my vote for my children's future."
Section 241 "mandates permanent, lifetime disenfranchisement of a person convicted of a crime of any one of 'murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, or bigamy,'" according to the ruling.
As the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) notes, "Section 241 permanently disenfranchises people convicted of 10 specific crimes, eight of which were chosen by all-white delegates in 1890 and based on their belief that Black people were more likely than white people to be convicted of those crimes."
There are currently more than 20 crimes that disenfranchise Mississippians from voting. The state—which according to the Sentencing Project is one of only 12 with lifetime disenfranchisement—added 11 more offenses to the ban list in 2005.
In contrast, everyone age 18 and up—including currently incarcerated individuals—has the right to vote in Maine and Vermont.
While Black Mississippians are 36% of Mississippi's voting-age population, they make up 59% of its disenfranchised people.
"Section 241 is Jim Crow law, which created a deliberate and invidious scheme to disenfranchise Black people," said LDF assistant counsel Patricia Okonta.
"Today, Black Mississippians continue to be disproportionately harmed by this provision," Okonta added. "While the state is home to the highest percentage of Black Americans of any state in the country, it has not elected a Black person to statewide office since 1890."
According to the Felony Murder Elimination Project, a California-based advocacy group:
Over 215,000 people in Mississippi were disenfranchised as of 2019, representing almost 10% of the entire state population. Of this total, only 7% are incarcerated. The remaining 93% are living in the community either under probation or parole supervision, or have completed their criminal sentence. The number of African American residents disenfranchised in Mississippi numbered 127,130 in 2016 or nearly 16% of the Black electorate.
"No one disputes that Mississippi's felon disenfranchisement law was enacted more than 100 years ago for the announced purpose of maintaining white supremacy and blocking Black citizens from voting," ACLU national legal director David Cole said in a statement.
"Racially motivated laws don't become valid over time," Cole added. "It's just as unconstitutional today as it was when it was enacted. That such a law remains on the books today is a stain on the state's law books, and plainly unconstitutional."
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What Would Statehood Mean for Puerto Rico’s Criminal Justice Reforms?
If Puerto Rico is being boxed into statehood, will Congress commit in writing not to infringe on the progressive values and practices long established in Puerto Rico’s constitution and laws?
Jul 28, 2023
In a matter of a year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedents and critical policies that took years of blood, sweat, and tears to build momentum for. The right of women to choose what happens to their own bodies during pregnancy, the use of race as a factor in college admissions despite the value of diversity in educational settings, the establishment of a constitutional right for businesses open to the public to deny service to protected classes.
In the criminal justice context, this ultra-conservative judicial activism continues to roll back basic protections under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. Indeed, just years ago Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised a clarion call against the court’s allowance of an unconstitutional detention by police to be justified, after-the-fact, by the existence of an outstanding warrant—something no police officer can determine by simply looking at you, unless, presumably, you’re Black or Latinx.
And this simply summarizes what the judiciary alone has done. Congress is constantly entertaining ways to limit the rights of the accused in this country.
The details of what the United States will commit to—or not—when it comes to this politically expedient push for statehood matter.
Why do rollbacks like these matter for Puerto Rico when Congress is considering status options that include statehood?
Amid some leaders urging that Puerto Rico be leaned on to become a U.S. state and that this can somehow magically solve the problems that Americans created over centuries, Puerto Ricans should be asking tough questions about the implications of annexation, or statehood.
I am a son of Puerto Rico. I am also the former president and general counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. I’ve defended civil rights, racial justice, and the right of Puerto Ricans to fair self-determination for my entire career. The pro-statehood messaging around Puerto Rico’s future fails to address the fact that the ways Puerto Rico and the U.S. operate in many spaces are dramatically different.
Puerto Rico is clearly confronting a web of issues stemming from U.S. colonialism. But as history and practice show, the Puerto Rican people have been leaders in spaces like criminal justice.
Since 1980, Puerto Ricans who are incarcerated are allowed to vote and they avidly exercise that right from their prison cells. With over 6,500 of 11,500 prisoners registered to vote in Puerto Rican elections, candidates campaign for their votes in a Caribbean archipelago where democracy is not eliminated through incarceration.
In Puerto Rico, capital punishment was abolished in 1929 and enshrined in its first-ever constitution in 1952. History tells us that the first persons ever executed by the government were enslaved Africans in 1514—killed for leading an uprising. But that is no more, as the command that “The death penalty shall not exist” is the law.
Puerto Rico also has a constitutional right to bail. Since its constitution of 1952 the protection is clear: “Every accused shall be entitled to be admitted to bail.” Apparently, it is the only place in the Western Hemisphere that establishes a fundamental right to bail in all cases. Even fear-mongering by its opponents has been rejected by the public as recently as 2012 and previously in 1994.
In part, Puerto Rico’s traditions stand in contrast to those of most states because it patterned its own Bill of Rights not after the U.S. Bill of Rights but after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Predictably, given its colonial status, these policies create tension with the colonizer especially given where Puerto Rico stands on capital punishment, which the federal government insists has no bearing on it seeking the death penalty in Puerto Rico’s federal courts. This big footing is part and parcel of colonial dominance since 1898, with this year marking the 125th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico.
Now, this is not to say that there are not severe systemic racial and criminal justice problems in Puerto Rico, where the police department has a federal monitor, deservedly, where a femicide crisis and violence against transgender residents have no end in sight, and where prison conditions are deplorable.
But if Puerto Rico is being boxed into statehood, will Congress commit in writing not to infringe on the progressive values and practices long established in Puerto Rico’s constitution and laws? Will Members of Congress deny the right-wing forces in the island that would be willing to sacrifice these legal protections in exchange for statehood?
Currently, the Puerto Rico Status Act (PRSA) is being pushed in Congress as a remedy to its colonial status. Consider history in a Caribbean country where the legislature, government agencies, schools, and courts—and all those who come before them—conduct business in Spanish, 24/7. Prior to Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and other states being tracked into the union, Congress included English language requirements in the enabling acts they passed. The U.S. immediately imposed an Americanization policy in the early 1900s to force Puerto Rican schools to teach in English—after decades of disaster and failure Puerto Rico finally restored Spanish as the medium of instruction. Yet the PRSA dodges what Puerto Ricans would be subjected to in crucial matters like language, criminal justice, and taxes.
As a lawyer and as someone deeply concerned about the present and future of Puerto Rico, it’s a big red flag when major issues like these are left out of the conversation and not clearly stated. And I must ask why? And who does this serve? Because it’s not Puerto Ricans, justice, or human rights.
While we witnessed the Supreme Court roll over hard-fought battles to extend “America’s promise,” we were reminded that nothing can be taken for granted. The details of what the United States will commit to—or not—when it comes to this politically expedient push for statehood matter. Puerto Ricans, here and there, need to take heed and demand answers, not the void that this legislation offers.
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DeSantis Sued for 'Aggressive Campaign' Against Former Felons Seeking to Restore Voting Rights
"Ever since the people of Florida passed a constitutional amendment to grant people with felony convictions a new right to vote, the governor and the state have done everything in their power to prevent those 1.4 million new voters from actually voting," said one lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Jul 19, 2023
A voting rights group on Wednesday sued Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials for what it called "illegal intimidation" of voters by intentionally making it difficult for former felons to determine their voting eligibility and using "election police" to "mount an aggressive campaign" against people who did not know they were ineligible to cast ballots.
The lawsuit—filed in Miami federal court by Free and Fair Litigation Group, Arnold & Porter, and Weil Gotshal & Manges working pro bono on behalf of the Florida Rights Restoration Committee (FRRC) and individual voters—alleges that state election officials "have created such a bureaucratic system around the implementation of Amendment 4 that it prevents Florida citizens from voting."
"Florida's failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen."
Amendment 4 is an FFRC-led 2018 referendum approved by nearly two-thirds of Florida voters reenfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions. The stakes transcended Florida and criminal justice reform, as a botched state voter purge of purported former felons played what one federal civil rights commissioner called an "outcome determinative" role in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
"Ever since the people of Florida passed a constitutional amendment to grant people with felony convictions a new right to vote, the governor and the state have done everything in their power to prevent those 1.4 million new voters from actually voting," Carey Dunne of the Free and Fair Litigation Group said in a statement.
Additionally, FFRC alleges that DeSantis' deployment of statewide "election police" constitutes illegal voter intimidation under the federal Voting Rights Act.
DeSantis—who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination—has faced widespread criticism for using Florida's Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated people who believed they were eligible to vote under Amendment 4 for alleged "voter fraud." Most of those arrested were Black and almost all were Democrats.
The new lawsuit alleges that DeSantis and Florida election officials failed to uphold their legal responsibilities by:
- Providing inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information to potential voters who try to determine their voting eligibility;
- Creating a byzantine process in which voter eligibility is determined by varying local practices depending on where the potential voter lives; and
- Creating, publicizing, and deploying an "election police" unit designed to arrest people for having voted, including some people encouraged to register to vote and provided a voter ID by Florida election officials.
"Florida's failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen," said FFRC executive director Desmond Meade.
"This is not a Black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian, or multiracial issue or a Republican or Democrat issue; this is an everybody issue," Meade added. "If Floridians cannot rely on the state to determine voter eligibility, then who can we rely on?"
The plaintiffs in the suit are seeking a declaration that "Florida's implementation of Amendment 4 is unconstitutional and illegal under the Voting Rights Act."
FRRC also requests the creation of a statewide database for prospective voters in order to determine their eligibility under Amendment 4, as well as the appointment of a federal compliance monitor.
"From the governor on down, state of Florida and local officials at every level have failed to reintegrate returning citizens who have served their time back into our democracy," Arnold & Porter pro bono counsel John A. Freedman said in a statement. "We are proud to stand with our clients and our co-counsel in this important fight."
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A Survey of Felon Voting Rights on Super Tuesday
Laws preventing ex-offenders from voting vary across the country, and disenfranchise millions.
Mar 01, 2016
Millions of Americans will cast ballots on Super Tuesday and in November, but many people will have no choice but to stay away from the polls. State felony disenfranchisement laws in 48 states prevent nearly six million citizens from exercising their voting rights, according to a 2015 Sentencing Project policy brief. More than two million, or nearly 40 percent, of these disenfranchised people are African American.
Felon voting laws vary widely, from allowing convicts to vote while in prison to permanent disenfranchisement. Several Super Tuesday states allow some ex-offenders to vote if they meet certain conditions. Although Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe relaxed some of the rules regarding restoring voting rights to ex-felons, people who served time for violent offenses must wait three years before applying to have their rights restored. They also must not have any outstanding fines, damages owed to victims, or court costs. In the Old Dominion State, the racial disparities are particularly pronounced: 20 percent of black adults in Virginia are disenfranchised.
In Tennessee, people who have committed certain violent and sexual crimes are permanently banned from voting. Notably, the Volunteer State also bars ex-felons from voting if they are not up-to-date on child-support payments. But similar to Virginia, certain Tennessee ex-felons are eligible to vote: Those who are eligible can apply for restoration of their voting rights only after they have completed their entire sentence or fulfilled any parole or probation conditions and have paid any court-ordered restitution damages.
Wyoming, which holds its Republican caucus on Super Tuesday, passed a law in 2015 that required the state's Department of Corrections to issue a certificate of voting rights to first-time, nonviolent offenders after their release from prison. Prior to this change, first-time nonviolent offenders in Wyoming could only apply to have their voting rights restored five years after completing parole and probation. (People convicted of violent or multiple offenses are permanently disenfranchised.)
The movement to end disenfranchisement has a broad base of support from criminal justice reform advocates and voting-rights advocates alike. And getting ex-offenders registered to vote is a successful re-entry strategy. "Over the last few decades, a lot of states have been taking positive steps," says Tomas Lopez, a counsel at the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law. "We want people civically engaged."
Elsewhere, Maryland recently changed its policies on felony disenfranchisement. Democratic state lawmakers introduced a bill that sought to restore voting rights to felons upon their release from prison rather than having people wait until they complete parole and probation.
The bills passed the legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support only to be vetoed by Republican Governor Larry Hogan. However, state lawmakers overrode the governor's veto, restoring voting rights to 40,000 Marylanders. "If you're living and working in the community, you're allowed to vote," says Lopez, describing the new law.
In an attempt to alleviate overcrowded prisons, California lawmakers passed a series of bills in 2011 that would have placed low-level felony offenders under community supervision in county jails. They allowed others to be monitored by county agencies instead of state parole boards.
But California's then-Secretary of State Debra Bowen ruled that community supervision was essentially the same as being on parole, so felons being monitored by counties were still ineligible to vote. Three years later, civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of California, sued Bowen, asserting that she had stripped tens of thousands of citizens of their right to vote.
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo sided with the civil rights groups, but the state appealed the ruling. Last year, current California Secretary of State Alex Padilla finally dropped the appeal, which effectively restored voting rights to 60,000 Golden State ex-offenders.
Kentucky made some strides and then saw a reversal. Former governor Steve Beshear, a Democrat, issued an executive order that restored voting rights to approximately 100,000 citizens with nonviolent felony convictions. However, new Republican Governor Matt Bevin reversed the order during his first days in office last December, saying that the matter must be left to the state lawmakers and the "will of the people." Even though restoring the right to vote in Kentucky had bipartisan support, the Bluegrass State now rejoins Iowa and Florida as the three states that have permanently disenfranchised felons, no matter what type of crime they have committed.
This sort of backtracking is troubling. "Denying the right to vote to an entire class of citizens is deeply problematic to a democratic society and counterproductive to effective reentry," the Sentencing Project concluded in its report.
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The Perpetual Punitive Machine Backfires
Our nation has a penchant for creating unnecessary complexity and obstacles for its people in areas such as the tax, health insurance and student debt miasmas. The prison industry adds to this with what it euphemistically calls "collateral consequences." In simple language, this means a series of state-based statutory punishments - rooted in the medieval English practice of "civil death" - that greet ex-felons who have served their time and paid their debt to society.
Jun 06, 2015
Our nation has a penchant for creating unnecessary complexity and obstacles for its people in areas such as the tax, health insurance and student debt miasmas. The prison industry adds to this with what it euphemistically calls "collateral consequences." In simple language, this means a series of state-based statutory punishments - rooted in the medieval English practice of "civil death" - that greet ex-felons who have served their time and paid their debt to society.
Our country's overall policy is that once punished, ex-felons are released from prison to be free to re-integrate themselves into society as normal productive human-beings, yet we have a quagmire of unnecessary laws that prevent full rehabilitation. Many states prevent ex-felons from voting, and obstruct them when they try to obtain housing, enter college or get needed public benefits or employment. This simply does not make sense because such laws encourage recidivism, not rehabilitation. Some ex-felons then resort to unlawful means to feed, clothe and house themselves and their families.
If you're into cognitive dissonance, you can visit the websites of two organizations dedicated to righting this wrong. They detail the myriad of state laws and how ex-felons find themselves in a labyrinth of bureaucracy or end up in jail again. (Visit the Vera Institute of Justice and The Sentencing Project for more information.)
Let's consider an ex-felon who serves his/her sentence and wants to live a law-abiding life. Eleven states say they have no voting rights - permanent disenfranchisement. Other states have exceptions to the exceptions depending on the ex-felon's status, parole, etc. Only Maine and Vermont have no restrictions for ex-felons and, in fact, in these two states ex-felons can vote via absentee ballot while in prison.
In the nineteen-seventies, three ex-felons in California sued to get back their right to vote. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a majority opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist, rejected their argument that they are being denied equal protection of the laws under the U.S. Constitution (Richardson v. Ramirez 418 U.S. 24(1974)).
Moreover, under many state laws, landlords, community colleges and universities, student loan creditors and social welfare agencies can outright reject ex-felons.
Is it enough to affect the prospect of an honest election? According to the Sentencing Project, 5.85 million Americans are currently denied their right to vote. Furthermore, the institutional racism of the school-to-prison pipeline results in one of every thirteen African-Americans being denied their right to vote. With such racial bias, it is no wonder that we have such underrepresentation of many groups by our elected officials.
Additionally, the results of 2000 and all the negative consequences of 8 years under President Bush could have been entirely different had ex-felons not faced such discrimination because Florida is one of the states that has complete felon disenfranchisement.
In 2000, the consulting firm to Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, during the Jeb Bush governorship, somehow confused thousands of names of voters with the names of ex-felons and took away their right to vote. These law-abiding citizens could have more than made up for the 537 vote gap between George W. Bush and Al Gore. Without such voter restriction laws, this farce of a "mix-up" would have never occurred. Neither the consulting company, nor Ms. Harris incurred any penalty for such a portentous tampering.
Studies have shown, not surprisingly, that reducing the isolation of ex-felons by lifting these harsh post-punishment restrictions reduces the recidivism rate. Many states are responding to the obvious and are passing amendments chipping away at these post-prison sanctions with bewildering stratifications of ex-felons and parolees. So there is some progress, especially on the voting ban. (By the way, a blanket ban on voting from prison violates the European Convention on Human Rights.)
But do these state laws, that arbitrarily punish the already punished, even pass the smell test? We are supposed to be a country under the rule of law, which includes what is called "due process." That means you cannot be punished by the states without procedures that allow you to confront your accusers and defend yourself in open court before judge and jury, with rights of appeal. Remember, the Supreme Court ruled decades ago that if you are poor you must be given an attorney to defend you in criminal cases.
Under the draconian systems of "collateral consequences," or post-punishment penalties, ex-felons find themselves on one chopping block after another. They may ask - "Why are we being denied, excluded, or deprived, without even a hearing, of rights accorded everyone else after we've served our full sentence?"
More constitutional lawyers should test various provisions of the U.S. Constitution as they apply to various restrictions affecting ex-felons. The legislative process, known for being slow and haphazard, cannot adequately rectify the undue burdens of ex-felons who have been stripped of their civil rights.
This issue affects all members of society. It hurts the individuals, their families, and their communities. In addition, it costs the taxpayers more and more money each year to imprison people who fall victim to recidivism. It is not in anyone's interest to undermine rehabilitative programs and prevent ex-felons from more fully entering society.
Not very smart for a country that thinks so much of itself.
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