Will the 2000 Florida 'vote' repeat itself in 2004?
By Monica Moorehead
With the presidential elections scheduled less
than four months away, Florida's election process has once
again caused a national firestorm of protest over the
sabotaging of voter registration rolls where convicted "felons"
are concerned. This recent development was proving to be such
an embarrassment for Gov. Jeb Bush--George W.'s brother--that
the purging program was suddenly halted if not scrapped
altogether.
At the heart of this controversy is the fact that out of
Florida's list of an estimated 48,000 convicted "felons,"
22,000 of them are African Americans. That amounts to 46
percent. Yet African Americans make up just 11 percent of the
overall Floridian registered voters. Those who consider
themselves "Hispanic" or Latin@ make up 8 percent of Florida's
registered voters; they accounted for only 61 of the
individuals listed as "felons."
The vast majority of Black voters, more than 90 percent,
reportedly identify with the Democratic Party, while many
Latin@s vote Republican. Many of the pro-Republican Cuban
Americans in Florida view the Bush administration as more
anti-communist than the Democrats. It is little wonder that the
state Republican administration would want to get rid of many
of the Democratic Party electorate through purging to help
George W. Bush carry the vote in Florida.
During the 2000 presidential elections, Bush beat his
Democratic opponent, Al Gore, by a mere 537 votes due to the
disenfranchisement of thousands of African American voters and
other oppressed sectors. This scandal included denying Black
convicted "felons" the right to vote, many for the rest of
their lives.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Bush's theft of the national
election with a 5-4 vote. When members of the Congressional
Black Caucus, a number of them representing Florida districts,
tried to have a petition protesting the selection of Bush as
president, not one Senator would back the petition.
This latest purging saw the light of day when it was
discovered that more than 2,100 people on the "felons" list had
won clemency, meaning that they were supposed to automatically
have their voting rights reinstated. There was just one
problem. These names were never removed from the "felons"
list.
A matter of racism
The big-business media likes to frame this controversy
within the context of Democrats vs. Republicans, but it goes
much deeper than political affiliations with the capitalist
parties. What lies underneath this scandal is racism, pure and
simple.
There are more than 2 million people presently incarcerated
in local, state and federal prisons inside the U.S., the
largest such population in the world. A hugely disproportionate
number of these inmates are people of color, primarily Black,
Latin@ and Native. There are more young Black men incarcerated
than in U.S. universities. A large majority of those behind
bars were convicted of drug related, non-violent felonies.
An estimated 4.7 million people in the U.S. are barred from
voting due to felony convictions. That amounts to about 2
percent of the entire adult U.S. population. These startling
figures do not factor in those who are undocumented but are
still caught up into the vicious web of the U.S. criminal
justice system.
Thirteen percent of Black men have had their voting rights
taken away due to felony convictions, which is seven times the
national average. Black people make up between 13 and 15
percent of the overall U.S. population.
According to a July 11 New York Times editorial, each state
has its own rules and regulations on how ex-felons can restore
their right to vote. These rules are not made easily available
for those who are released from prison. And the rules are
written in a way that is very hard to understand. Thirty five
states prohibit some "felons" from voting once they are
released. Four states, including New York, allow "felons" who
are on probation to vote, but not those on parole.
John Parker, Workers World Party's 2004 presidential
candidate, remarked, "What is happening to Black voters in
Florida, whether convicted 'felons' or not, is a racist attack
on their democratic right to decide who will represent them
whether in the State House or the White House. And Florida is
just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other states, North
and South, that are disenfranchising people of color in order
to maintain the status quo.
"Our campaign is all about exposing the fact that there is
no fundamental difference between the pro-war, pro-big business
platforms of Bush and Kerry. At the same time, our campaign
stands in complete solidarity with the struggles of oppressed
peoples who to this day are still fighting for fundamental
rights that whites on the whole have had for many decades."
Reprinted from the July 22, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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