corrente

We are shocked, shocked to hear that all is not well in Jeb Bush's Florida. Would you believe they are still jacking around people with felony convictions even after they have served their time and been restored to society?

We didn't think so. Neither is the Palm Beach Post:

As many as 22,000 Floridians will be able to vote, serve on juries or do state-licensed work because Gov. Bush and the state Cabinet restored their civil rights last week. They committed felonies, did their time and deserve to rejoin society.

But estimates are that at least another 580,000 men and women in Florida remain disenfranchised because of the state's archaic law that denies full participation as citizens to people who have served their sentences. Florida is one of only six states that do not automatically restore rights to ex-felons who have completed their punishment. The 136-year-old law was written and passed after the Civil War to discriminate against freed slaves, and the Legislature made slight changes in 1968 to mitigate the discrimination. African-Americans continue to be affected disproportionately, accounting for up to 47 percent of the disenfranchised ex-felons. The law has no place in a state that considers itself progressive.
...
Florida's anachronistic approach to ex-felons also needlessly complicates elections. Last month, state officials said they had found 47,000 registered voters who might be ineligible because of felony convictions. County elections supervisors must try to verify identities and records. Forty-four states don't have this problem and avoid the intrusion of politics because they restore voting rights automatically.

Of the 125,000 ex-felons in the lawsuit, Gov. Bush and the Cabinet made those 22,000 eligible for automatic restoration; of the remaining 103,000, about half will have to go through a hearing process, and about half won't be eligible; some, for example, are dead or back in prison. The state is still telling 50,000 ex-felons that they must apply, then wait months for hearings, ensuring that they won't be voting in this year's elections. The governor and Cabinet are bringing relief to only a fraction of the disenfranchised.

Alas, after this excellent start, the Palm Beach editorialistas wimp out with a call for a complete rewrite of the election law, which can't be done until next spring. But they've made a good start. Round up the usual suspects, gendarmes.