Florida must devise way to restore felons’ voting rights

TALLAHASSEE A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Florida to devise a new way to decide when and how former prisoners can get their voting rights restored, saying Gov. Rick Scott and state officials can no longer rely on “whims, passing emotions, or perceptions” in that process.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker also blocked the state’s current system of forcing most ex-felons to wait at least five years before they can ask to have their voting rights restored.

The system was put in place in 2011 at the urging of Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Walker did not specify what rules the state should put in place but instead gave Scott and state officials — who act as the state’s clemency board — until April 26 to come up with a new process.

Florida was sued on behalf of ex-felons whose requests for voting rights were turned down.

“This court is not the vote restoration czar,” wrote Walker, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.

“It does not pick and choose who may receive the right to vote and who may not. Nor does it write the rules and regulations for the executive clemency board.” But he said the court possesses the established duty to “say what the law is.”

Florida’s constitution automatically bars felons from being able to vote after leaving prison and Walker’s ruling leaves the ban intact.

The state’s clemency process allows the governor and three elected Cabinet members to restore voting rights, although the governor can unilaterally veto any request.

The process has changed over the years.

Shortly after taking office in 2007, then-Republican Gov. Charlie Crist convinced two of the state’s three Cabinet members to approve rules that would allow the parole commission to restore voting rights for non-violent felons without hearings, and within a year, more than 100,000 felons were granted voting rights. Since Scott and state officials changed it in 2011 fewer than 3,000 of them have had their rights restored.

“This court concluded that Florida’s arbitrary slow drip of vote restorations violates the U.S. Constitution, but that does not mean defendants can shut off the spigot of voting rights with a wrench, yank it from the plumbing and throw the whole apparatus into the Gulf of Mexico,” wrote Walker.