OUR OPINION: Restore voting rights to ex-felons
Attorney General Eric Holder, who has become the Obama administration’s leading voice on minorities’ civil rights and criminal-justice reforms, recently championed a group that seldom gets the sympathy of law enforcers — convicted felons. During a criminal-justice symposium at Georgetown University last week, Mr. Holder called on 11 states, Florida included, to change their rules or to lift outright bans that prohibit felons who have served their time from voting.
Calling these rules a remnant of the Jim Crow era, when Southern states used all sorts of means to prevent black Americans from voting, Mr. Holder said, “Those swept up in this system too often had their rights rescinded, their dignity diminished and the full measure of their citizenship revoked for the rest of their lives.”
While the rules regarding if and when ex-inmates in Florida can vote have fluctuated over the years, the rule today is that felons must wait five years after they’re released from prison to apply for restoration of their voting rights. The Florida Cabinet adopted this rule in 2011. The arbitrary time of five years makes no sense. In truth, most felons, with the possible exception of violent offenders and those who commit sex-related crimes, should have their voting rights restored automatically when they have done their time.