This seems absurd.
You can't vote because you owe us money... but we're not going to tell you how much you owe, if anything at all.
That doesn't cover why the state can't keep track and report out who needs to pay what, of course.
Viewed through that lens, it's quite logical. Evil, but logical.
I would think anyone who has ever seen 50%+1 of the electorate support an unjust law would be less than interested in advancing democracy.
Democracy is a means: good government and liberty are the ends. That's a good part of the reason why the United States are not a democracy but rather a republic: we don't normally put laws up to the people directly for a vote, but in fact put many things beyond the reach of democracy. Freedom of and from religion, for example.
I don't really see how permitting felons to vote is likely to lead to either good government or increased liberty, although certainly the citizens of Florida had every right to amend their constitution to extend the franchise to felons, and the politicians of the state have a duty to obey their constitution.
WTF.
> That's a good part of the reason why the United States are not a democracy but rather a republic:
I guess it makes more sense if you think that rule of the people is somehow the opposite of not having a monarch.
Democracy is a decision-forcing mechanism that allows for a some amount of public participation in the mechanisms of governance. it is not a terminal value, it is an instrumental value. good government and liberty are the terminal values. democracy is a means to achieve good government.
We need freedom for the same reason: Because when you let a person make decisions for themselves, you have generally picked the best person for the job.
Ultimately neither are terminal conditions though, happiness is.
Also, it's not clear from your comment if the evil but logical act is the passing of the law or creating the system in which one is unable to prove they can vote once convicted of a felony. Which did you mean?
The evilness is using loopholes (poor bookkeeping and a strained reading of the ballot measure) to suppress the vote and tyrannically hold on to power. Referendums get tampered with by legislatures all the time but most measures aren't concerned with voting rights.
Another state I was familiar with really just had a list that some agency had... but honestly the list was only populated by in state known felons and IIRC there was no mechanism to check the list unless someone was actually arrested FOR voter fraud or something and that happened all of a handful of times when a bitter family member or spouse turned them in.
Outside that if a felon asked a judge they were almost always taken off the list because just showing the effort to care usually was enough for judges who just sent a letter to the folks with the list.
I remember thinking it was a pretty good system... if you had to have one.
Would rather not have such a system though.
But I do remember the exfelon needed the original court (judge?) to signoff once all the outstanding fees had been paid. So process involved multiple separate bureaucracies, each its own moving target.
Worse, the interest rate on the fees made the principle grow faster than could ever be paid off, effectively resulting in permanent disenfranchisement for a large fraction of exfelons.