Crush of new registrations, shortage of workers hampers ability to deal with problem:
More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.
Many are faithful voters, with at least 4,900 turning out in past elections.
Another 5,600 are not likely to vote Nov. 4  they’re still in prison.
Of the felons who registered with a party, Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one.
Not that 4.600 or so votes in Florida might have a significant impact, you know. But, you see, challenges to voters are meant to slow down lines to discourage voting, so you can’t have that.
Personally, I think that there ought to be means through which felons can rehabilitate themselves in order to be able to vote again, because I think that the franchise, and what it symbolizes, is so important. So important that exercising it ought to include an ID check.
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Felons confused
Several felon voters interviewed by the Sun Sentinel expressed confusion over automatic clemency and said they thought their voting rights had been restored. Some said they merely signed registration forms that were filled out by volunteers.“If I wasn’t able to vote, they wouldn’t have given me my [voter registration] card,” said John A. Henderson, 55, a Hallandale Beach Democrat. “I voted the last time and the times before that.”
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Broward elections officials were unaware of Henderson’s criminal record and did not check it when he registered, said county elections spokeswoman Mary Cooney. Nonetheless, she said he will remain on the rolls “until we are directed otherwise to remove him.”
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Since January 2006, more than 1.6 million new voters have registered in Florida. FDLE identified more than 124,000 possible felons.
In that time, elections workers removed about 7,200 from voter rolls statewide. Broward County took off just 232 and Palm Beach County 31.
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John Teate, who lives west of Boca Raton, remains on the voter rolls after registering as a Democrat in July despite felony drug and theft convictions dating to the early 1990s. He said someone he thinks was a Democratic supporter signed him up while he waited for a bus at the central terminal in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
“I said, ‘I’m a convicted felon. I can’t vote,'” recalled Teate, 45. “I figured when the paperwork came in, there would be a red flag.”
A spokesman for Barack Obama’s campaign said it is unlikely his volunteers signed up Teate because his name is not in a database of new voters they registered.
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To civil rights advocates, the troubled system is an argument to change the state’s constitution to automatically restore voting rights to all felons who complete their sentences.
As of mid-September, about 118,000 mostly nonviolent offenders had received automatic clemency under the 2007 change. For more than 9,700 of them, it didn’t matter  their names had never been removed from the voter rolls.
Having to identify yourself is racist, hater.
With so many land developers recently convicted of felonies here in Florida I believe the Republicans might have the felon-vote advantage.
I think the Broward and Palm Beach people would be more motivated if that were so, thor.
Luckily Florida does require identification for voting. At least they do at the precinct where I vote. I don’t thing there were too many felons in line with me, in fact since there was no line, I don’t believe I saw any felons at all the last time I voted in the Republican primary.
I’m wondering, if the felons are still locked up and, presumably, cannot vote, are we worried that other folks outside of the prison will impersonate these inmates at the ballot-box, and vote multiple times?
Or, is it that most election overseers do not match the names of finished voters to their state’s prison logs after the election, and that, therefore, they offer the “Count Every Vote” crowd a chance to cry “disenfranchisement” because they can’t find this or that registered (and detained) Democrat’s punched ballot?
After all, any good lawyer can ask a court to consider that all 30,000 of those avowed Democrat voters can’t be in jail, can they? Some must have voted and where are their ballots!!
Or, could it be that Bush just hates ‘Black’ people?
I don’t see the point of laws that people are free to ignore. I doubt this would fly with my taxes, but I could see ignoring speed limits. No harm, no foul.
Just give them butterfly ballots. Problem solved.
Felons, once they serve their sentences and parole, can have their civil rights restored in Florida, including voting, by filling out a simple one-page form, available online. You need to do more paperwork to get a credit card.
Meanwhile I have a relative in another state who pleaded to marijuana possession on the understanding that once he completed his extremely light sentence his conviction would be expunged — only to learn later that the deal wouldn’t hold.
To this day he can neither vote nor own a gun, because in his state the rules are much tighter (and I admit in my opinion they should be) and he was lied to by one or more of the lawyers handling his case.
Maybe he should have moved to Florida all those years ago, before he got in trouble.
Now that’s scary! Seems to me that when they are released from prison they would be told what they can and cannot do.
what are the rights that a felon has, are they still an american citizen, I’m starting to wonder, are they allowed to have a job, I have a friend thats a felon and he hasn’t had any trouble with the law more than ten years and its really hard to get a job, he just applied at wal-mart and they won’t give him a job because he has a record and we are from the state that has the same initials as southern california and its sad to say the least, the prisons are full of african american’s