‌‌‌‌‌Supposedly Criminal Voters Were, In Fact, Told They Could Vote

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Florida told them they were allowed to vote. Then Florida prosecuted them for voting. The governor says they’re an “opening salvo.” 

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For Some Floridians, Voting Is A Trap

As soon as FLORIDA Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced that the state was prosecuting 20 people for voting illegally because they’d previously been convicted of felonies, I assumed that the defendants had believed they were eligible to vote. After all, it’s extremely rare for people to intentionally vote illegally — doubly so for people who know what the inside of a prison feels like. 
 

There was also history: Another recent voter fraud prosecution targeted former felons who wrongly believed they were eligible to vote.
 

My assumption was right. The same thing has indeed happened this time: Local outlets, and now national outlets, report that several of the defendants charged with wrongfully voting despite prohibitive felony records were assured by sheriff’s deputies, parole officers and others along the way that they were in fact eligible to vote. The state never warned them that, by simply attempting to participate in the democratic process, they would risk being sent back to prison. 
 

And, as in the earlier cases, prosecutors are focusing directly on the would-be voters, not the county or state officials who approved them. “Through no fault of your own, records demonstrate that the convicted felons listed in the attached Exhibit A were registered to vote and voted in your county during the 2020 general election,” Florida’s DeSantis-appointed election cop, Pete Antonacci, wrote to elections officials recently.
 

Florida voters in 2018 overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to restore the voting rights of former felons, except those convicted of murder or a felony sex offense. The voters charged recently in Florida fall into that prohibited category. To add to the confusion, the state’s Republican legislature and governor muddied the waters, passing legislation requiring all case-related fines and fees to be paid off before a given voter’s rights can be restored. What’s more, there’s no easily accessible database spelling out who’s currently eligible to be registered post-felony and who’s not, leaving former felons in danger of accidentally violating the law. 

If the state can’t guarantee the legitimacy of its voter registration approvals, how are well-meaning former felons supposed to feel confident in their restored voting rights? Or, maybe, that’s the point: They aren’t supposed to feel confident about voting again. 

More Speechifying From The President

We all remember the last time Joe Biden made a big speech about the sanctity of voting rights. Speaking to a Georgia crowd, he hyped a big upcoming Senate vote and wondered, “Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice?” 
 

If that was indeed the choice, then the answer from every Senate Republican and Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) was, in effect, “autocracy, shadow and injustice, please!” They voted against a filibuster exception for voting rights, dooming the effort. 
 

Now, more talk on the democracy vs. autocracy question from Biden. Last week, he said Republicans “have made their choice to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division” and were “semi-fascist.” The President is set to deliver an address Thursday “on the continued battle for the soul of the nation.” Is there progress to be made this time, now that the Senate has in hand a limited bipartisan reform bill, aimed at making legal changes to prevent another Trumpian effort to steal an election? 

Around The States

The GEORGIA prosecutor investigating 2020 election interference by Donald Trump and others has broadened her investigation to include Sidney Powell, who worked with a team of lawyers and technicians to breach voting machines nationwide, including in Georgia.
 

A federal appeals court in MISSISSIPPI found that, while state lawmakers 132 years ago certainly had racist intent when they crafted a law meant to disenfranchise Black people, state lawmakers in 1968 were totally kosher and constitutional when they reauthorized a slightly amended version.
 

The NAACP and League of Women Voters in MISSOURI are suing over a new law adding restrictions to voter registration efforts — including a requirement that volunteers registering voters must first themselves register with the state. 
 

TEXAS’ new voting law, and its threat of criminal prosecution, gets between disabled voters and the assistance they need to exercise their rights, a lawsuit alleges. 
 

Curiously, after WYOMING Republicans nominated a 2020 election liar to oversee elections as secretary of state, there’s movement in the state’s legislature to distribute election oversight authority among several top elected officials.

The Latest In Election Sabotage

A federal judge in ARIZONA threw out a lawsuit from the GOP’s nominees for governor and secretary of state seeking to ban voting machines, saying they’d presented only “conjectural allegations.” 
 

Indicted Mesa County, COLORADO Clerk Tina Peters’ deputy has pleaded guilty in the criminal case against the pair and will cooperate with the investigation into her boss. 

In Johnson County, KANSAS — where the sheriff is “investigating” 2020 fraud claims and has affiliated with the far-right “constitutional sheriffs” movement — a state judge rejected a lawsuit seeking to preserve records from that election, saying the injunction sought by plaintiffs seemed purposed to “keep a vague notion alive to undermine the finality of the 2020 election.” 
 

The MICHIGAN Republican Party formally nominated two high-profile election liars, Matthew DePerno and Kristina Karamo, to run for attorney general and secretary of state, respectively. 
  

UTAH’s Republican governor and lieutenant governor called MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s latest claim — that literally “nobody votes in Utah!” — “idiotic” and “pure garbage.” 

Votebeat: Ken Paxton’s legal guidance on public access to ballots contradicts advice his office gave out just five days earlier

Bolts Mag: The Big Lie Messengers Who Carry a Badge and Gun
 

NPR: Some Republicans in Washington state cast a wary eye on an election security device

Democracy Docket: The Partisan Implications of the ISL Theory

Brennan Center: Patterns in the Introduction and Passage of Restrictive Voting Bills are Best Explained by Race

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