‘A joyous day’ ahead as 1.4 million Florida ex-felons have voting rights restored

SARASOTA, Fla. — One of the largest enfranchisements of U.S. citizens in the past century begins Tuesday in Florida, and many of the more than 1.4 million ex-felons set to regain their voting rights here are treating the moment as a celebration.

In Tampa, one group is renting buses to register en masse at the county elections office. Others will be live-streaming on Facebook as they march in. Demetrius Jifunza, convicted as a teen of armed robbery, is now a father and pastor who wants to make his daughters proud.

“It’ll be a joyous day,” Jifunza said of the trip to the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office, a journey made possible when voters in November overturned Florida’s 1868 ban blocking residents with felony convictions from automatically having their voting rights restored once they served their sentences.

In the run-up to Tuesday, the organizations and volunteers who worked for the past decade to pass the needed amendment to the state constitution have been ramping up their efforts to encourage ex-felons to quickly follow through. There’s a toll-free number, 877-MY-VOTE-0, and a website with tips.

“We’re kicking this into a higher gear now,” said Neil Volz, political director of the bipartisan Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Pro-bono attorneys will be on call in case problems crop up in the coming weeks.

At a strategy meeting in Sarasota in December, a small group of returning citizens – the term many people prefer over ex-felon – hashed out ideas on getting people motivated. It was one of more than a dozen such meetings across the state held by coalition members, which were made more urgent after some lawmakers suggested that Amendment 4 should not take effect until the legislature can review it.

Supporters insist the legislature does not need to do a thing. “The amendment was written to be self-executing. It goes into effect on Jan. 8, and we can register that day,” Volz stressed. He will be in line himself in Lee County, a dozen years after he pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal in Washington. “My supervisor of elections assured me that my registration form will be accepted.”

The Sarasota meeting was held on the same day that Gov.elect Ron DeSantis, R, backed a delay so that lawmakers could consider how ex-felons’ registration should be implemented. To many, the timing is suspect: The legislature does not convene until March, but municipal elections in Florida begin in February. All Democratic candidates running for statewide office in November endorsed the amendment. Republican candidates largely did not, including DeSantis and Gov. Rick Scott, R, who beat incumbent Bill Nelson, D, in the U.S. Senate race.

At the polls, the measure was approved by nearly two-thirds of voters. “We view this as is a delay tactic,” Volz said of DeSantis’ comment.

But the amendment may prove an unexpected political boon for the state’s GOP. Many Republicans opposed granting voting rights to ex-felons because they assumed most would register as Democrats. It’s a reasonable assumption because more than 21 percent of African-Americans in Florida can’t vote given felony convictions, and blacks are a much stronger presence in the Democratic Party here. (They represent 29 percent of registered Democrats, vs. only 1 percent of registered Republicans.)

Still, if Democrats expect to see an immediate windfall of new party voters, they should take a closer look.

Many ex-felons involved in the movement to restore voting rights did not want to reveal their political preferences while they were pushing Amendment 4, but they are much more relaxed about discussing those now. A lot are conservatives who say they will register as Republicans. Even more are planning to register as NPA – No Party Affiliation.