Free Republic

TALLAHASSEE — When police went to arrest Tony Patterson outside his Tampa home in August, he couldn’t believe the reason. “What is wrong with this state, man?” Patterson protested as he was being escorted to a police car in handcuffs. “Voter fraud? Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man.” Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security. The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a...

Progressive organizations, many financed by billionaire activist George Soros, are working overtime to restore voting rights for Florida’s nearly 1.4 million ex-felons as the nation’s biggest swing state seems poised to play a pivotal electoral role in the 2020 presidential race. The current battle revolves around a Florida state amendment that was passed last year restoring voting rights for felons, with progressive groups opposing a local bill that would require the state’s ex-felons to first pay civil fines and court fees before registering to vote. Florida’s Amendment Four was approved by voters during last year’s Midterm election. The heavily Soros-funded...

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said Saturday he’s already begun restoring the voting rights of convicted felons one-by-one, after the state Supreme Court rescinded his executive action granting voting rights en masse to more than 200,000 people convicted of serious crimes. “Last night I instructed my staff to comply with the court’s order and individually restore the rights of the more than 13,000 Virginians who had successfully registered to vote following my April 22nd executive order,” Mr. McAuliffe said in an email to supporters. “Soon they will have their rights back and will be able to have a voice in their...

Bill seeks to restore felons' voting rights TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A bill that would automatically return voting rights to felons after they complete their sentences has been introduced by a Florida legislator who is still in office even though he is a felon. The bill introduced Thursday by state Sen. Gary Siplin would change the state's long-standing constitutional ban on felons voting. Now, a felon's rights can be restored only by the state's clemency board, which must hear each case in a process that can take months or years. Florida is one of just three states – all in the...

Dear FReeper,Many Republican State Party Chairs sent the following letter to their Democratic counterparts today:America Coming Together (ACT) has claimed to reach over 2 million targeted households in their efforts to register Democratic voters to defeat President George W. Bush. This week in Arkansas the Kerry campaign hired a senior member of the ACT team to lead their stateefforts. Recently in Ohio the state Democratic Party declared that ACT will run the ground game for them.Furthermore, today's Kansas City Star reports that Charlene Davis, director of the Jackson County election board, said "many of the voter registration forms ACT workers...

State and county officials are spending the holiday weekend conducting the final test on a new system to check lists of registered voters against those of felons and dead people. The new database matching system was required by the Legislature in the wake of the 2000 election, when several voters complained they were improperly prevented from voting because they were wrongly identified as felons. State officials say the new system, which Florida paid the consulting firm Accenture $1.6 million to design, will be better than previous efforts to check for illegal voters because it will be updated daily by computer....