Gore's Biggest Missing Florida Bloc by Evan Gahr Talk about swing voters. Never mind the nearly 100,000 Naderites in Florida who didn't much care if they threw the election to George Bush. Forget the elderly Jews reportedly aghast to discover that they mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore. Five hundred twenty-five thousand strong in the sunshine state, all that kept them from the voting booth were convictions for rape, murder, armed robbery, and other faux pas.
Courts take the argument quite seriously.
Marc Stern, a voting rights expert at the American Jewish Congress, speculates that the close election in Florida is likely to embolden the reform movement. Republicans who continue to oppose reform would appear particularly partisan-and worse. Liberals can now cite Florida to illustrate the horrific consequences of denying the vote to criminal offenders. Previously, their case was somewhat abstract. This past election day, an estimated 4 million Americans, including 1.4 million black men, were ineligible to vote because of felony convictions.