I got a water bill today, which shows I owe about $3 from the last bill, plus what I owe for this cycle. I looked the old bill up, and I paid exactly what it showed I owed. I think a clerical error printed the previous bill or something like that. So if people who 'owe' money to Florida, who's to say the amount is going to be 100% accurate? The state demands payment, the state determines the bill. You pay or you don't vote. Really?

Like, totally

Future amendment sponsors take note: parse your words very, very carefully because opponents just might have lawyers whose only job is to find loopholes. Don't use overly broad language such as "all terms of sentence". If you want to exclude fines and fees then you should write the initiative to explicitly exclude fines and fees.

Your elections are rigged, you have a klan member as governor....the judiciary is fucked.

The court relied heavily on the statements concerning what is meant by “all terms of sentence “ made by the sponsors own counsel during a prior hearing in making this ruling.

On top of that the wording of the amendment is pretty damn clear: “all terms of sentence”. That seems to include fines and fees that are handed down part of a sentence. They did not specify that only the custodial portion of a sentence must be completed before voting rights are restored.

Like it or not the court made the proper call on this based on what’s in front of them.

The drafters can try to amend it to exclude fines and fees.

When you ask if a fine and restitution is part of the sentence, the obvious answer to the question is yes. Whether this serves as a unconstitutional poll tax is a much pertinent question.

Is that legitimate? Would it be constitutional to allow people convicted of say white collar crimes to vote and exclude people who committed other kinds of theft that poor people are more likely to commit?

Section 1 of the 13th amendment allows for treating convicts differently.



But it isn’t clear whether you can make distinctions based on the type of crime.

Is this likely to go to the us supreme court?

and capitalist greed think up new ways to screw us over. There's never a break.

But we cannot give up. Every single day all of us need to fight back. New initiatives, writing, participating in local politics and events, talking to friends and neighbors.

You know why?

Because there are a boatload more of us than there are of them. All they have on their side is stuff like this. We have numbers, and if enough Americans are educated about what is happening, the landslide will be so massive that cheating will be impossible. Then those who walk into office can and should level the playing field.

Don't you just hate it when time travelers from the past try to poison modern politics?

only a barrier to those that have broken the law and been sentenced in court.
What needs to be done is the law needs to be rewritten to allow people to vote regardless of the money they owe for fines and fees due to a sentence that they were handed as long as they have completed serving any prison time that they were sentenced to.

...Bloomberg, Steyer, Soros. What better use for their money? Set up a foundation, ask for donations (I'd give) and start paying off these fines and restitution.

Hire some attorneys and wait to see what the republicans come up with next to suppress the vote.

I'd donate so that formerly incarcerated people can vote.

The work around is judges convert fees etc to community service. It’s already happened in several places.

...'blue" counties in Florida have set up 'rocket dockets' to dismiss all outstanding fee/fines of their local ex-felons, while the 'red' counties are not, and thus the net effect of this ruling is that blue counties are increasing their voter populations while red counties are not.

If upon release, any fines or fees immediately get waived, there is no longer any reason to assess them any longer.


Wonder if that also includes any owed restitution to victims?