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Ex-Offenders and Voting Rights: Overview Felon Disenfranchisement Laws in the State of Florida
Under Florida law, convicted felons are disenfranchised, or disqualified from voting in elections, until they apply for and are granted restoration of their civil rights. In this state, the Clemency Board ? made up of the Governor and his cabinet members ? has the authority to restore felons' civil rights. The Rules of Executive Clemency, issued by the Governor, set out the eligibility requirements for restoring the right to vote. (Those requirements are discussed further below in the Legal Issues section of the March Case of the Month.)
There are currently 525,100 disenfranchised felons in Florida. This figure is 4.6% of the 1998 voting age adult population in the state. This figure includes 63,700 who are currently incarcerated, 137,200 who are on probation, 9,200 on parole, and 436,900 exfelons who have completed their sentence and any supervision requirements.
Throughout its history, Florida has disenfranchised at least certain offenders, incorporating disenfranchisement provisions in all five Florida Constitutions: 1838, 1861, 1865, 1868 and 1885. While the earlier Constitutions gave the state the power to exclude persons convicted of "bribery, perjury, or other infamous crimes" from voting, the Constitutions of 1986 and 1885 specifically disenfranchised all felons until they went through the proper procedures of restoring their civil rights.
In a Yale Law Journal article published in 1993, author and attorney Andrew Shapiro noted that "between 1890 and 1910, many Southern states tailored their criminal disenfranchisement laws, along with other preexisting voting qualifications, to increase the effect of these laws on black citizens." 103 Yale L. J. 537, 540-42 & nn.19, 25-27 (1993).
Regardless of whether or not they were intended to be racial discriminatory, disenfranchisement laws have nevertheless had a highly disproportionate racial impact on convicted felons in Florida: One third of all disenfranchised exfelons in the United States live in Florida, 204,600 of these disenfranchised felons, or 47% are black men, and 31% of the black adult male population in Florida cannot vote as a result of felon "disenfranchisement" laws that prevent them from participating in the overall democratic process of electing public officials.
According to 1997 census estimates, blacks represent 15% of Florida's population. Across the country, felon disenfranchisement laws have a significantly disproportionate effect on black men. The impact of felon disenfranchisement on Hispanics in Florida is also likely to be significant, although we do not yet have data on that.
Persons convicted of a felony serve time in prison, pay a fine, sometimes cover the costs of their prosecution, and frequently make restitution to their victims. After paying their debt to society, what legitimate purpose, other than continuing their punishment, is served by also denying them the right to vote? Supporters of felon disenfranchisement laws frequently argue that by excluding ex-offenders from the voting booth, states are: 1) protecting against voter fraud or other election offenses 2) preventing harmful changes to the law by ex-offenders who arguably have a tendency to vote to weaken the content or administration of criminal law and 3) protecting the "purity" of the ballot box.
In an article published in the National Law Journal, on June 28, 1999,Gillian E. Metzger, a staff attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law argues that "there can be no legitimate Constitutional basis for disenfranchising [felons] once the state has freed them to reintegrate into society." She goes on to write: "Denying them the right to participate in the core of democratic government only raises the barriers to their rehabilitation as law-abiding members of the community."
"The absence of any legitimate penal rationale for disenfranchising release felons is particularly acute in those states where commission of a felony leads to lifelong exclusion from the polling booth. The situation is yet more irrational because most felon disenfranchisement law apply to anyone who is convicted of a crime for which imprisonment is a possible sentence, regardless of the sentence they actually receive, the nature of their particular crime or their criminal history."
There have been legislative efforts to help ex-felons reassume the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Last year, representative John Conyers Jr., D-Mich. submitted a bill, H.R. 906, that would permit felons who are not imprisoned to vote in federal elections. This bill, which likely will be introduced again by Conyers this Congressional session, is a good beginning. Although most voter qualifications are established by the states in the first instance or by the Constitution, H.R. 906 falls clearly within Congress' constitutional powers to supervise federal elections.
Locally, two bills have been introduced during the 2001 Florida Legislative Session that address the issue of voting rights for ex-felons. HB 0049 is a constitutional amendment that would authorize the Legislature to enact a statute that would automatically restore voting rights for ex-felons. HB 0051 spells out the process in more detail, and provides for the automatic restoration of ex-felons' voting rights following the completion of all sentences and probation.
