Florida is one of four states that permanently prevents people with felonies from voting, even if they’ve completed their sentence, probation and parole. The state’s constitution allowed the governor to restore voting rights for any reason he or she saw fit and didn’t require an explanation. Scott and other top officials met only four times a year to consider applications to restore voting rights, causing a backlog of more than 10,000 requests. Several people who appeared before the board this year said they had begun the process to get their voting rights restored over a decade ago. Ralph Northam has continued a policy begun under his predecessor of personally aggressively restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions.

Source: Huffington Post November 07, 2018 02:03 UTC