James joins push to turn out ex-felon vote
NBA superstar LeBron James, who led the Miami Heat to two NBA titles, and other Black athletes and entertainers are joining the push to allow Florida’s ex-felons, also known as returning citizens, to vote in the November presidential election, according to POLITICO.
More Than a Vote, the group established by James and others in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, said it will donate $100,000 to help pay outstanding court debts of former felons so they can register to vote, POLITICO reported.
Ari Berman, who authored the book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, tweeted out a news release about the group’s efforts to combat voter disenfranchisement in Florida.
The money will go to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which in 2018 successfully backed a constitutional amendment that lifted Florida’s lifetime voting ban on people with felony convictions. The Republican-led state Legislature earlier this year raised the bar for felons to vote, passing a law that is being challenged in federal court, POLITICO reported.
“Your right to vote shouldn’t depend upon whether or not you can pay to exercise it,” Miami Heat forward and More than a Vote member Udonis Haslem said in a written statement. The partnership will help ensure that “formerly incarcerated American citizens — many of them Black and brown — are able to pay their outstanding fines and fees and register to vote in the 2020 election and beyond.”
More Than a Vote is also partnering with Magnolia Pictures and Participant, a media company with a socially-driven mission, to screen John Lewis: Good Trouble, a new documentary that chronicles the life of Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died last week. Proceeds from the online screening will also go to the FRRC’s fines-and-fees fund.