A measure to restore civil and voting rights upon completing sentences is unlikely for the November ballot.
By Associated Press
Published June 28, 2004
DAYTONA BEACH - A referendum to automatically restore felons' voter rights after they leave prison will likely fall short of the number of signatures needed to make the November ballot, a civil liberties group said.
The measure was more likely to be on the 2006 ballot, the American Civil Liberties Union's legislative lobbyist, Larry Spalding, said Saturday.
If passed, the amendment would provide for automatic restoration of civil and voting rights for felons once they have completed serving their sentences.
Florida is among a half dozen states nationally that do not automatically restore the voting rights of felons who have left prison.
Under Florida law, former felons lose their right to vote unless they request to have it reinstated by the governor and clemency board.
The purge of some supposed felons from Florida voter rolls before the 2000 presidential election sparked a lawsuit filed by the NAACP, the ACLU and three other groups on behalf of black voters.
The federal class-action lawsuit charged that minority voters were widely denied voting rights in seven counties.
The state settled that lawsuit in July and agreed to help restore voting rights to nearly 125,000 convicted felons who didn't get enough advice on how to regain their rights when they walked free.
Spalding spoke at a workshop Saturday on restoring rights to former felons.
He said that most of those who began the process now would not be eligible to vote by November.
"The process is overwhelming," Spalding said. "The idea is that people like you don't have persistence. You've got to prove them wrong."
Dozens of people attended the workshop, including some ex-felons who have had their rights restored but feared they might be mistakenly purged from the voting rolls again.
