From Frances Langum:
Florida has NO IDEA how much any of the 58,000 ex-felons who’ve applied to vote, owe in court costs. So the state is SITTING on ALL the applications. ALL of them.
You may recall that Florida Republicans circumvented the will of their people, who voted in 2018 to allow ex-felons (except murderers and sex-offenders) to vote once they were released from prison.
The Republican legislature and governor found a loophole: those ex-felons also had to pay their court costs and fines in order to be eligible for voting.
But Florida has no database or billing structure in place to tell ex-felons what they owe, and finding out may take years of “research.”
As a result, Florida is sitting on the 58,000 requests they have received from ex-felons for voting rights. ALL of them.
Any effort by a billionaire to “pay off the fines” so those affected can vote this year? What if no one in the state can tell Michael Bloomberg what the final bill is?