Florida's 1.5 million former felons just won the right to vote

More than 1.5 million Floridians just got back their right to vote.

On Tuesday, the Sunshine State voted in favor of Amendment 4, which will restore voting rights to former felons who&#x2019;ve served their sentences. The amendment required 60 percent of the vote to become law.

Tuesday&#x2019;s decision could have a seismic effect on Florida elections in future, and potentially turn the swing state blue. About 10 percent of the state&#x2019;s adult population are believed to be ex-offenders. Additionally, a significant percentage of that bloc &#x2013; about half, according to the [Prison Policy Initiative](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/FL.html) &#x2013; are black, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

The amendment doesn&#x2019;t apply to people convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses, who will remain barred from the voting booth. However, they can apply to have their voting rights restored, and their requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the governor and cabinet.

**Read: _[Florida could restore voting rights to more than a million convicted felons](https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/wj3ew4/florida-could-restore-voting-rights-to-14-million-convicted-felons)_**

Florida had one of the harshest felon disenfranchisement laws in the country. Former felons had to wait five years after completing their sentence before they were allowed to apply to have their rights restored, which were considered on an individual basis.

Iowa and Kentucky are the only remaining states that permanently disenfranchise former felons. A patchwork of laws dictate when and how ex-felons can restore their voting rights in other states.

Two states, [Maine and Vermont](https://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000286), allow felons to vote from inside prison while serving their sentence.

**Read: _[Felon vote could swing Roy Moore's Alabama Senate race](https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/8xmmvv/felons-could-be-the-swing-vote-in-roy-moores-senate-race)_**

When Susanne Manning went to prison for embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from her employer, she lost a lot of things: Her home, her job, her freedom.

But bigger than all that — as big, she said, as losing her relationship with her son — was losing the right to vote.

“I just felt like I wasn't part of society anymore. Like I just – why bother? I didn't belong. I didn't, I couldn't have a say. I remember putting on Facebook that out of all of the consequences of my prison stay, of my criminal behavior, out of all of the consequences, if I could have any one of them back, I would want the right to vote back,” she told VICE News in an interview.

Florida’s one of just three states in the nation where all convicted felons automatically lose the right to vote. According to the ACLU, Manning is one of an estimated 1.7 million felons in Florida who can’t vote.  

But that could change after November 6, when Floridians vote on Amendment 4, a ballot measure that would restore voting rights to nonviolent felons who have served their sentences, finished their parole and paid their fees. The ACLU estimates that 1.4 million felons would be eligible to immediately get the right to vote back if the amendment succeeds.

Florida does allow some felons to restore their rights, but the process has gotten tougher under Republican Gov. Rick Scott – and the number of felons who’ve gotten their rights back have dropped precipitously from the previous administration. With Gov. Scott at the helm, the board has restored voting rights to just over 3,000 people over the past seven years — a huge drop from the previous administration, when 155,000 got their rights back in just four years.

To restore their rights, felons must go before the state’s clemency board for approval. The board — made up of the governor and his all Republican cabinet — has been criticized as biased in the past for asking loaded questions of black applicants. A Palm Beach Post analysis of about half of those who had their rights restored under Scott found the governor restored voting rights to a lower percentage of blacks and Democrats — and a higher percentage of whites and Republicans — than any Florida governor in the past half-century

Some Democrats in the state say restoring rights to individuals convicted of felonies could change the political landscape in the state.  

“Make no mistake: if Rick Scott believed for one second that every one of these voters were Republican, he would have restored their rights eight years ago,” Jeremy Ring, the Democratic party’s nominee for state chief financial officer, told voters at a rally. “In a purple state, with 1.6 million voters that Rick Scott says are Democratic voters, that means we are no longer a purple state. We are a blue state.”

In Florida, support for Amendment 4 among candidates for office is divided down party lines — with Democratic candidates in support and Republicans, including Scott, who’s now running for Senate, opposed.

But it doesn’t have to be a partisan issue. Charles and David Koch — the billionaire brothers famous for throwing big dollars behind Republican candidates — are supporters of felon enfranchisement, and criminal justice reform more broadly. The Koch-backed nonprofit, Freedom Partners, endorsed Amendment 4 in Florida, and an official with the Koch network said the brothers have spent at least seven figures on their criminal justice reform efforts nationwide this year alone.

Mark Holden is a senior vice president at koch industries — and says it doesn’t matter if restoring voting rights boosts one party over the other.

“We don't know who's going to vote for whom and at the end of the day we shouldn't worry about that. We should try to make sure that people are coming back into society with a chance to succeed and that we're treating them in a way that's humane and that we're not reminding them every single day of their life the worst thing they ever did.”

And Amendment 4 appears to have bipartisan support among Florida voters, too. A September poll found that more than 70 percent of likely voters said they’d back restoring voting rights to felons. That’s more than the 60 percent threshold the measure needs to pass.

But Manning isn’t taking support like that for granted. She’s been working with a group called Florida Rights Restoration Coalition to advocate for Amendment 4, and has been out knocking doors in her neighborhood for months to get out the word. If it’s successful, Manning still has years to serve on her parole before she’s eligible to vote again. But she said getting that right back would mean more than just being able to check a box on a ballot.

If I can vote, I can vote for things such as being able to have housing for people getting out of prison. Being able to find jobs. There are so many other things,” she said. “To vote is to me the epitome of living in a democracy, or living in a free country.”

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A constitutional amendment on the ballot in Florida would restore voting rights for individuals convicted of certain kinds of felonies. The amendment has garnered the support of organizations on the left and right.

Florida could restore voting rights to 1.4 million convicted felons

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_Cover: Voters fill out their ballots as they cast their vote at a polling station setup in Legion Park for the mid-term election on November 06, 2018 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)_

FYI.

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Florida's 1.5 million former felons just won the right to vote

FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Florida's 1.5 million former felons just won the right to vote

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