Blacks: Allow ex-felons to vote

Most polled support overturning a law that prohibits convicted felons from voting. The disenfranchisement law disproportionately affects blacks.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 19, 2001

• Assessing Gov. Bush • Issues • Felons and Voting Rights

Most black voters in Florida say that the state should overturn the law that prevents a half-million people of all races from casting a ballot because they are convicted felons, a St. Petersburg Times poll shows.

The survey says that nine of 10 black voters in Florida think that felons who pay their debt to society should automatically have their voting right restored.

Florida is one of nine states that deny the right to vote to all convicted felons who have served their time. Felons can have their rights restored by appealing to the governor and Cabinet, often a lengthy process.

Support for a change to the state law is uniformly high among men and women, Republicans and Democrats, and all age groups, according to a survey of 600 African-Americans conducted by Washington-based Schroth and Associates for the St. Petersburg Times.

Florida's law has been part of the state's political landscape since the 1800s and has spurred a federal class-action lawsuit against the governor and spawned several legislative efforts to overturn it.

The law disproportionately impacts blacks, who tend to vote Democratic. Indeed, some research suggests that ex-felons of all races lean toward the Democratic Party. Some experts contend a change could have a big political effect in a state that was shown during last year's presidential race to be closely divided between Republicans and Democrats.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law estimates that 500,000 felons in Florida are affected by the law. Of those, 139,000 are black people, according to the center.

Christopher Uggen, a University of Minnesota sociologist who has studied the political consequences of felon disenfranchisement laws, contends that Gore would have won Florida if felons would have been allowed to vote last year. He also speculates that Florida's retired U.S. Sen. Connie Mack probably would not have won his close 1988 election if felons had been allowed to vote.

However, lawyers for Gov. Jeb Bush's office have argued that the number of people who can't vote because of the law is much lower than the 500,000 cited by opponents.

State Rep. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, has filed two bills that would give felons their voting rights one year after they satisfy all sentences. Four similar bills are filed in the Senate. All are assigned to several committees -- a sign that they might have tough going in the GOP-controlled Legislature.

But Smith said House Speaker Tom Feeney has floated a compromise that would allow ex-felons to apply to a local judge for clemency. Feeney was not available to comment.

House Majority Leader Mike Fasano said he was unaware of any compromise offers, adding that he thought the state's present clemency process is adequate. The Republican caucus has not taken a stance on the bills though, Fasano said, and he expected vigorous committee discussion on them.

Whether the bills make it to the floor of the Republican-dominated body depends on the committee chairs, he said.

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"I'd like to hear the debate," Fasano said. "The one thing I don't do is try to support or not support legislation based on an overnight poll."

Gov. Bush's Select Election Task Force also has identified the issue as critical and referred it to the Legislature for review and possible action. The task force did not recommend specific changes, co-chairman Tad Foote said, because it was too complicated an issue to resolve on a tight time line.

"We felt like it was important, and we needed to say it was important," said Mark Pritchett of the Collins Center for Public Policy, chief of staff to the task force. "We didn't want to look like we didn't want to deal with it."

Smith said the Times' survey results confirm what he already knew.

"It's the right thing to do," he said. "The problem is that some politicians don't think it's the political thing to do."

Smith hopes the poll helps him persuade his colleagues to change the law. With the attention paid to the controversy over last November's election, Smith said: "If it's going to happen, it's going to happen this year."

According to the survey results, 72 percent of African-American men and 63 percent of African-American women strongly agreed with the statement, "The law should be changed so that convicted felons in Florida automatically regain their right to vote at some specific time after after they've repaid their debt to society."

Another 20 percent of African-American men and 26 percent of African-American women said that they agreed somewhat.

Only those who said they voted for Gov. Bush were more likely to oppose the change. About three in 10 from that group, which represented less than 5 percent of the total survey population, said they "somewhat" or "strongly" disagreed with changing the law.

Strong support was highest in the Panhandle, 75 percent, and lowest in southwest Florida, 43 percent. Two in three black Democrats and three in five black Republicans strongly backed the idea.

The telephone survey was conducted Feb. 3-5. The poll of 600 registered voters has a margin of error rate of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Recent coverage

Former felons fight for vote (January 21, 2001)

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