Bloomberg pays off $20m debts of 31,000 felons so they can vote in Florida | Hacker News Reader

Bloomberg pays off $20m debts of 31,000 felons so they can vote in Florida

dailymail.co.uk

44 pointsgmac61 comments

The original fact that you can't be in debt to vote is quite abhorrent.

In other times this would be quite the scandal. Given that right the Florida government is actively engaging in voter suppression though...

As a convicted felon in FL you need to have completely full filled the terms of your sentence from the courts in order to have your voting rights restored. This sentence may include the payment of fines or restitution. It is the failure to pay these court ordered payments and therefore completing the terms of their sentence which prevents a convicted felon from being able to vote.

General debts do not prevent someone that is or isn't a convicted felon from voting.

This doesn’t make it much (at all?) better to me. It might even make it worse that the explanation should make this any better.

As there are rights and privileges, there are also responsibilities. One is to maintain yourself within the bounds of the law. Seems like if you're not willing to take responsibility for your actions then you don't get to tell others what to do through voting.

Isn't the theoretical point of prison to rehabilitate? We want to take people who have wronged others and get them to take responsibility for their actions and make them productive members of society. Removing voting rights permanently certainly can't increase the engagement of criminals, enough that the voters of florida voted to enfranchise felons.

In practice, the general sentiment of prison at least in the US seems to be more for punishment ( see tough on crime laws, etc.) and not rehabilitation.

Until recently voting rights were actually removed permanently in FL for felons. Now voting rights can be restored if people who have wronged others take responsibility for their actions. Part of taking responsibility for your actions is completing the court determined punishment for your crime. This can include fines and making financial restitution to those who have harmed through your actions.

I'm sorry but by the standards of most civilized western nations it's still an abomination that your voting rights are tied to financial obligations.

What if some laws are selectively enforced and don’t have a logical reason for even existing? Is it morally okay to ignore those laws until logic and sense prevails? I think it is ironic how some Americans cry ‘freedom’ over wearing masks or taxes but don’t skip a beat in dictating how somebody else treats their own body.

What I’m saying is not all laws are just and being a Felon doesn’t diminish the person’s reasoning capabilities. Felons can easily act as rational as some of these politicians...

In theory, yes. But the people he's paying for have real crimes on their records, like assault and robbery. The only thing he takes into account is race. If black or latino, he pays. If you're not, you still don't get to vote.

this is patently false, frcc assistance is race blind and you only have to be covered by the ballot initiative to qualify. i would be very interested to learn where you have (falsely) heard there is some race based test for assistance that has led you to repeat this (false) claim.

i would add the ballot initiative did not require fines and fees to be paid and this was tacked on by the legislature for the express purpose of continuing to prevent as many of these people as possible from voting.

What if the law are unjust but no one else in society cares you're locked up?

A distinction without a difference.

There's a big difference between a fine and a debt. The purpose of each is different, and fines can be set proportional to the persons wealth.

But they don't, the system is incredibly unjust and this likely rights more wrongs than the status quo.

That’s not true. Many “rich” people are in debt yet they can vote. If I’m underwater on my mortgage and have negative net worth, I can still vote.

What’s abhorrent is certain debts prohibit voting.

Another site with the story, if you don't want to click on the Daily Mail: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/22/mike-bloombe...

This is genius. I was wondering how Bloomberg would spend the $100m he committed to Florida. I had never considered reenfranchising ex-felons.

Money well spent.

The Politico article is more reality-based. https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/09/22/blo...

It's not clear if Bloomberg also paid restitution, money owed to victims, in addition to fines and legal debts.

One my besties ran our state's version of FL Rights Restitution Coalition. https://floridarrc.com They successfully updated our laws for process to reenfranchise ex-felons, which was widely acknowledged as even worse than Florida (at the time).

Even more ridiculous than the fines and legal debts is the bureaucracy. Of the 1,000s of ex-felons who'd squared up every year, less than 20 were able to navigate the red tape to actually restore their right to vote.

FWIW, voting rights should never be contingent on fines, debts, restitution. That's flat out unconstitutional, just like poll taxes. Many (most?) states don't even disenfranchise felons. The states that do disenfranchise are whackadoodles.

> Money well spent.

Imagine being a black person with college or business debt and you see this billionaire rewarding all these felons. I think I'd be voting Trump, out of spite.

Rewarding is a bit of a stretch. My understanding is the people of Florida had an up down referendum on restoring voting rights to felons who’ve served their time a few years back which passed.

Then the GOP down there did some maneuvering and introduced this “pay off all debts first” clause which I believe is fairly unpopular down there (although I cannot cite anything for that).

Bloomberg is rectifying what many consider to be a wrong down there and reenfranchising (not a word) these 32,000 voters with this gesture.

Given the incredible disparities within our criminal justice system I sincerely doubt most Black people are sitting there mad that the right to vote is being restored to these persons, especially since apparently the idea is popular enough that the referendum passed.

You oppose debt jubilees?

There are many organizations, governments, banks which buy and dissolve debts.

Even John Oliver does it.

Not necessarily, I'm questioning the efficacy of this particular gesture.

I thought we were against billionaires buying elections?

You oppose enfranchising ex-felons who've otherwise fulfilled all their social obligations?

What an absurd voting system.

Even funnier when you consider he worked out how to game the system and is only paying off the debts of African Americans and Latinos who are registered to vote.

Funnier yet is that he knows who the convicted felons will be voting for. It's cheaper to pay their debt than to convince law biding citizens to vote for your guy.

This is an actual case of billionaires buying votes, even if the system that disallows voting for inmates is kind of archaic.

Those inmates can vote for whoever they want and it probably won't be for the guy who wrote the 1994 Crime Bill.

Lol, like more than 2% of these inmates even know what that is.

Any polling to back that up? You'd be surprised

Yeah, who cares if migrants are having their uteruses removed, the guy isn't woke enough.

You do know the uteruses removal thing is fake news right?

Reference which more-or-less backs that up: https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-were-mass-...

the tl;dr of this article seems to indicate that.

- There have been surgeries traced back to one facility and one doctor inside a detainment center

- There is currently no evidence that this practice is widespread or policy.

The fact is it still did happen within an ICE facility but it might be more limited in scope.

I think the prior line of work of that guy's running mate might be the bigger issue.

I'm not sure I understand. I think "buying a vote" implies that it had to go to a particular candidate. This only allows these people to vote again at all.

It is certainly very targeted not sure what to call it, voter re-enfranchisement?

While they said they targeted Black and Latinos I imagine they also targeted younger demographics to court a more Democratic turnout.

I personally think it's same as any campaign group that is helping and assisting people get to voting centers. It's money enabling people to vote. And thus it's fine that a Democrat is trying to help his fellow Democrats vote.

No, this is primarily a case of a populist, broken system that prevents citizens from voting

Wait. Not only people can buy votes, but people with debts cannot vote??

Yeah, democracy.

People with oustanding fines and restitution payments can not vote. Private debt has nothing to do with it.

What a backward requirement

This sounds like terrible guerrilla marketing.

Biden at the next speech: "if you are voting for trump, you ain't a felon"

>'We know to win Florida we will need to persuade, motivate and add new votes to the Biden column. This means we need to explore all avenues for finding the needed votes when so many votes are already determined,' Bloomberg said

>Other donors include John Legend, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, the Miami Dolphins, the Orlando Magic, the Miami Heat

Then these people talk about bias.

Florida law on this should be concerning for Bloomberg:

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?mode=View%20St...

Whoever by bribery, menace, threat, or other corruption whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, attempts to influence, deceive, or deter any elector in voting or interferes with him or her in the free exercise of the elector’s right to vote at any election commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084 for the first conviction, and a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084, for any subsequent conviction. (2) No person shall directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another intending thereby to buy that person’s or another’s vote or to corruptly influence that person or another in casting his or her vote. Any person who violates this subsection is guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. However, this subsection shall not apply to the serving of food to be consumed at a political rally or meeting or to any item of nominal value which is used as a political advertisement, including a campaign message designed to be worn by a person.

No, Bloomberg does not have anything to fear from claims of bribery or trying to buy votes. As long as this policy is applied to anyone who applies for it regardless of any stated voting intention. It is not illegal for political parties to provide rides to the voting booth as long as they offer it to anyone who asks and do not try to influence the voter.

In this case Bloomberg is making a guess as to the voting intentions of this group, but there is nothing illegal about this guess as long as there is no quid pro quo either stated or implied.

Isn't this basically the same as offering disabled or infirm people a lift to the polling place?

He's spending some money on enabling some people to vote. The difference is that the resource he spends is money, instead of the use of people's time and vehicles.

> As long as this policy is applied to anyone who applies for it regardless of any stated voting intention. It is not illegal for political parties to provide rides to the voting booth as long as they offer it to anyone who asks and do not try to influence the voter.

It's very possible to offer something to everyone but ensure that "your team" makes up the bulk of the people taking up the offer.

As long as he pays off the fines unconditionally, without asking them who they'd vote for, then I don't see a problem here.

"No person shall directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another intending thereby to buy that person’s or another’s vote or to corruptly influence that person or another in casting his or her vote."

Bloomberg has also pledged $100 million to Biden's campaign and ran as a Democrat in the primary.

I'm all for banning large donations in politics, but apparently that is perfectly legal. It's certainly something that's extremely common for both parties. And I don't think Bloomberg is expecting a political position in exchange, unlike some other people in recent years.

Look, I'm not a fan of Bloomberg, and I'm rather disgusted by his attitude that enough money could win him the election. But I also think what he's doing here is honest. He's paying people's fines to give them back their right to vote, which Bloomberg (and many others) think shouldn't have lost in the first place. So it's at least partially a matter of principle; a matter of fighting voter suppression.

No doubt he hopes that many of these people will vote Democrat, but he has no guarantee, nor even a promise, that they will. I'm pretty sure many of them won't vote at all, and many others will vote Republican. Maybe more of them will vote Democrat, but most of those 31,000 will not.

Indeed not a problem per say. However it raises some ambiguities over its real intentions. Timing is too perfect for not pointing that out. But it cannot be blamed blame for working out the system here.

There are no ambiguities over its real intentions. It won't run in court but it's very clear what he is doing.

Especially when his widely publicized declared intent is to influence the vote on FL. He has the means. He's declared his motive. He's taking advantage of the opportunity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com