Wow- Fl. Governor Crist restored the right of 115,000 felons to vote ....

[Alhena]

I saw the Freepers freaking out over this issue and did a little digging. Turns out that Charlie Crist may be one of Obama's best friends in Florida- he restored the right to vote for 115,000 felons.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080914/ARTICLE/809140358/-1/newssitemap

[GOPNotForMe]

1. I was very impressed with his decision to do so.

Then he went ahead with the "no match, no vote" law, which will inevitably disenfranchise some voters. I don't know what to make of Charlie. He has nominated two fundie loonies to the Fla. S. Ct. but he has done other moderate things for the state. He always confuses me.

[AllentownJake]

2. I'm sure Pawlenty, Crist, Mittens and Huckabee

while publicly are praising McCain are secretly looking forward to his downfall after they were rejected for the VP slot for Palin. 2012 or 2016 is a long ways away but a Palin Vice Presidency guarentees an end to their dreams of the office.

Hopefully it will be a generation before the next Repuke gets in and when they do we will be looking at a very different GOP.

[davidpdx]

9. True

Crist is probably one of the front runners for 2012 (assuming McCain loses). I think Romney doesn't have enough support and might instead run for Ted Kennedy's seat in MA (rumors are he will retire). Huckabee is probably the most liberal of them in my mind, but the fact he is a minister turns people off. I'm not sure what to think of Pawlenty.

[spag68]

17. Romney

I hope he runs for senate. It will just be too much fun to see him get roughed up. After what he has said and done up there, how could he think the Kennedys don't have a game plan for when Teddy retires?

[davidpdx]

19. I agree they probably do have a game plan

but they are keeping it quiet.

[AllentownJake]

18. It will be interesting

In 2012 if Obama turns things around or is popular in 2010 the A-team will sit on the sidelines waiting for 2016. If it looks like Obama is going to walk into a second term like Bill Clinton did in 1996 there won't be many players on the A-team willing to risk their reputation on being the doormat Obama walks over. Look for an older party leader or a young unknown upstart govenor to be the nominee hoping for a miracle.

I think Huckabee is happy he's getting a big paycheck from Fox and will probably writing a few books to cash in as well. Say what you want about the guy but he's never had money and he's about to make some. He might just say fuck it and live the rest of his life in a big house with a swimming pool and getting paid for speeches.

Crist and Jindal are the GOP's big stars right now. Pawlenty to a lesser extent. Palin will be interesting to see what happens after the election. Assuming an Obama victory there is going to be alot of finger pointing and its actually been going on since the decision to pull out of Michigan. Palin will be doing everything she can to throw McCain under the bus. The only question is if McCain lets her or if he says I was forced to take her and I wanted Ridge. If PA is within 4 points McCain will have a valid case he could have won with Ridge on the ticket which maybe one of the reasons he's camped out here.

[davidpdx]

21. Well and with Huckabee I have conflicted feelings

I think they guy is very likable and comes across well, but I dislike most of his policies. Part of his problem is he's not conservative enough for the right wing Republicans to win the nomination. Theoretically Huckabee would be better off waiting for a Senate seat to come up when someone retires or challenging a D in his homestate, then running for President again. There's no way he'd win the nomination.

[Occam Bandage]

3. Glad to hear it.

[mwei924]

4. Not surprising.

When you remember, this is the guy who ditched McCain to go to Disney World. And he's not 8.

[TheDebbieDee]

5. I think Gov. Crist may be a RINO.........

At the very least, he is a SANE republican.

[rockymountaindem]

6. You mean *the* sane Republican

:D

[ddeclue]

7. Christ (sic) is in the closet...

He's actually a Democrat!

:)

Republicans in FL are pissed but he's otherwise well liked in FL and the anti-Jeb on a great many things.

Doug D.

[Hugabear]

26. Crist is no fucking Democrat

He's a career politician who will say and do anything to get elected. If that means pandering to moderates and Democrats, then that's what he does. But he wasn't called "Chain Gang Charlie" when he was State Attorney here in Florida for nothing.

[DeepBlueDem]

8. The past 8 years have been back luck to Florida since 2000

Hurricanes, Wildfires, Job losses, Tourism losses, Housing crisis, and JEB CROW LAWS

[Drunken Irishman]

10. You think Crist is pissed McCain passed him over?

[Thrill]

11. Don't conservatives already call him a Democrat?

[kestrel91316]

12. I am happy to hear this. I always thought it constituted cruel and

unusual punishment to deny, for life, voting rights to people who had supposedly finished repaying their debt to society.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. me too

[JBoris]

14. He also set a goal of 20% renewable energy by 2020 for FL...

then again he gutted our state budget to give a property tax cut to the rich. So I can't say that I like him, but he is less evil than most republicans. And certainly better than Jeb bush.

[DeepBlueDem]

15. I left Florida right before Jeb Crow was enforced

I lived in FL during the Lawton Chiles era! He did a lot of good in FL

Crist Bitter? well see

[Cha]

16. That was ONE of the huge things in Florida in

2000 when katherine harris Purged 90,000 Felons I believe.

And, this is important from Robert Wexler website..

From Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL):

"I saw it with my own eyes: The Bush and GOP machine stole the 2000 election and the presidency in Florida (not to mention Ohio in 2004) and the results have been catastrophic for our nation and the world.

Don’t take my word for it - read the dissent of Supreme Court Justices Stevens, Breyer and Ginsberg in the absurd legal decision of Bush v. Gore: “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”

Back in 2000, in Florida, I witnessed the votes of World War II veterans thrown away and GOP thugs bully the Miami Dade elections office into stopping a recount. I swore to myself that never again would the votes of Americans be thrown away and replaced by the votes of appointed judges. Following the 2000 election, I spent 7 years fighting to remove the DIEBOLD electronic machines from Florida and to install a voter verified paper trail which we accomplished last year.

I have bad news: They are trying again to silence our votes.

Most people associate the 2000 election with paper “chads” and the Supreme Court’s tragic decision. Yet the voter suppression in 2000 went way beyond not counting votes – from illegal roadblocks near minority precincts to the complete purging of legitimate voters from the rolls through what is called “voter caging “– the practice of using databases to improperly delete voters.

Now, we are seeing signs of voter caging again in both Michigan and Florida.

In Michigan, the state is using a list of foreclosures to purge voters (many of which are still legitimate voters in their districts).

In Florida, my home state, the Republican led Supervisor of Elections is aggressively applying a new law designed to limit voter fraud by summarily deleting voters who might have – as part of a clerical error – a different driver’s license or social security number than was put in the database.

If legitimate, legal voters are denied access to the voting booth – we risk a repeat of 2000, in multiple states.

We must remain vigilant, not just in defense of our economy, but in defense of our rights as Americans.

I am working with my colleagues in Congress to call attention to this matter, but I encourage you to contact your state elections supervisor and demand that they allow every person who claims to be a legitimate voter to submit a provisional ballot.

There is a system in every state to deal with provisional ballots – to verify their legitimacy after the fact.

Voter caging is a threat to our (already challenged) democratic principals. Please join me and pass this email along to spread the word.

If you have not already signed up at http://www.wexlerforcongress.com, and would like to be on this list, please sign up today."

Sincerely,

Congressman Robert Wexler

[krkaufman]

20. Just to be clear... FORMER felons. n/t

[Juche]

22. Sweet for 2 reasons

1. If you have paid your debt and want a second chance at polite society this will help people readjust and give them incentive to stay law abiding. Although I never committed any felonies or been arrested, I have done extremely stupid shit in my youth and want a second chance to grow up and contribute.

2. (Have to say it), convicted felons vote democratic about 90% of the time. Those 115k votes will come in handy considering only 7.5 million people voted in 2004.

[vaberella]

23. A lot of future Obama voters. n/t

[ProgressiveEconomist]

24. Read the fine print in the OP link: Only 9,000 have had their voting rights restored, most likely

BY DESIGN. There's been a backlog of 60,000 ex=felons whose cases need "investigation" before they can vote, and a 20 percent percent staffing CUT for those who could clear the backlog.

Many states have gotten headlines repeatedly over many years for "ending" felon disfranchisement, but the devil is in the details in every one of them.

"Florida's felony voter registration law divides applicants into three categories based on the seriousness of their crimes: nonviolent criminals, the biggest group, need not apply for restoration of voting rights and just need to re-register.

Violent criminals, but not murderers or rapists, must apply to the clemency board. The board either grants those rights immediately or investigates on a case-by-case basis. The most violent criminals are subjected to a more rigorous investigation and must attend a hearing of the clemency board, which meets only four times a year, before their rights can be reinstated.

Despite the state's liberalization of felony voter procedures, only 9,000 out of a potential 112,000 former convicts in Florida registered to vote in the last year, according to a report last month in The Orlando Sentinel. Part of the reason is that thousands of notifications sent by the state went to the wrong addresses because of poor data and former prisoners' high mobility. Fred Schuknecht, the director of administration for the Florida Clemency Board, acknowledged in an interview that there was a backlog of 60,000 former felons who could potentially have their rights restored, but must first be reviewed by the agency.

Despite the fact that 3,500 newly released prisoners are added to the caseload every month, the Legislature cut 20 percent of the staff devoted to felony voter restoration cases, Schuknecht said. Further, Bell said that many former convicts shun attention, even if that means abdicating their voting rights. "You might want them to fill out the registration form, but they have an outstanding warrant," she said. "And in order to help them, I need to ask what their crimes are, but they might not want to say.""

[ProgressiveEconomist]

25. So the OP is DEAD WRONG in saying Crist "restored the right to vote for 115,000 felons"--

Crist only PRETENDED to do so.

[Alhena]

28. No, apparently the non-violent ones only need to re-register, no agency approval required

I fully expect that the Obama campaign and ACORN got more than 9,000 to register in recent months.

I've seen reference to ACORN having registered 30,000, with the Florida secretary of state saying there's no time to review them so they will be allowed to vote. So I don't think I'm DEAD WRONG at all.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

30. Please read the article YOU posted: Backlog of 60,000, 3500 new ex-felons a month,

20 percent CUT in staffing to handle the backlog, only 9,000 voting rights restored.

This "voting rights restoration" system is a SHAM, and the backlog will grow by TENS OF THOUSANDS a year, while Crist takes credit for his "magnanimity" toward ex-felons.

Most of the other states that have "liberalized" lifetime felon disfranchisement have similar systems, designed to fool those who don't read the fine print.

[berni_mccoy]

29. Actually not true. Crist did this back in Aug and before that, he granted group-clemency to

ex-felons as early as April of 2007. Over 120,000 ex felons were granted clemency to vote and thousands since August have registered since their rights were restored. Here's the link: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-flffelons0830sbaug30,0,7309267.story

[ProgressiveEconomist]

31. Read it. Much less thorough than IHT artile, which says only 9,000, not 120,000

have been registered since last year. Even your article says "automatic" is not really "automatic"--only after an unspecified period of time has elapsed.

[trueblue2007]

27. this is awesome!!!!