Their bills would automatically restore those rights. Many felons aren't aware that they cannot vote, the sponsors say. As a result, many do so anyway, and the state has not found an effective way of weeding them out. Last week, a Herald investigation found that, in Broward alone, at least 452 felons cast ballots illegally in November's election. Florida is one of 14 states that bars felons from voting.
Felons can restore their civil rights only by navigating a bureaucratic obstacle course.
They must apply to the state Office of Executive Clemency in Tallahassee, a process that can take eight months to a year, Smith said. A disproportionate number of those barred from the political process are African Americans, Smith and Dawson said. Dawson said, adding that there is no lesson for ex-convicts to glean from not being able to vote. The state's voting ban on felons is a part of the South's racial history. After the Civil War, white Florida lawmakers sought to offset blacks' newly earned voting rights by designating new classes of crimes as felonies, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed by civil rights centers on behalf of about 500,000 people in the state with felony records.