{"id":46230,"date":"2024-06-05T14:49:49","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T18:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=46230"},"modified":"2024-06-05T14:49:49","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T18:49:49","slug":"a-local-advocate-for-felons-voting-rights-cries-foul-after-gov-desantis-promises-clemency-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/06\/05\/a-local-advocate-for-felons-voting-rights-cries-foul-after-gov-desantis-promises-clemency-for-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"A local advocate for felons\u2019 voting rights cries foul after Gov. DeSantis promises clemency for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Advocates who have fought for the restoration of voting rights for Floridians with past felony convictions are crying foul after Governor Ron DeSantis promised former President Donald Trump would be allowed to vote in the November election.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Those advocates say the Governor is poised to bend the rules to help his political ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after former President Donald Trump was\u00a0convicted on 34 felony counts, Governor Ron DeSantis\u00a0took to social media<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted the former President has not lost the right to vote here in Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Trump loses the right to vote, DeSantis said, \u201cThis would be an easy case to qualify for restoration of rights per the Florida Clemency Board, which I chair\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are so many people that filed for clemency years ago and they\u2019re waiting in line and they\u2019re telling them, okay, it could take seven years. But now this individual, the former president, can just walk up and get clemency automatically,\u201d said Rosemary McCoy with Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCoy, a Jacksonville resident, has been fighting to have her voting rights restored since being released from prison nearly a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She advocated for the felons voting rights amendment voters approved in 2018. She signed onto a lawsuit <\/a>when DeSantis and state lawmakers made payment of fines, fees, and restitution a requirement for rights restoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe laws are bent for the privileged and for the common people they are basically whipping us,\u201d said McCoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Representative Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) noted DeSantis has touted dozens of arrests of felons who attempted to vote in past elections in violation of state law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a two-tiered system. It shows that if you have more money, that the rules don\u2019t apply to you,\u201d said Nixon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Trump\u2019s case, the only way he\u2019d be ineligible to vote under New York State law is if he\u2019s incarcerated during the election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would mean DeSantis would have to grant amnesty well before the former President had completed all terms of his sentence as mandated by Florida law <\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCoy argued if it\u2019s good enough for the former President, it should be good enough for all Floridians with felony convictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe needs to ensure that all of us have the right an eligibility to vote. He has that power and we want him to use that power for the people,\u201d said McCoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Governor\u2019s Office declined to weigh in specifically on this story, but in his post on social media DeSantis did cite the \u201cabsurd nature of the New York prosecution of Trump\u201d as justification for his suggestion Trump would be granted clemency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advocates who have fought for the restoration of voting rights for Floridians with past felony convictions are crying foul after Governor Ron DeSantis promised former President Donald Trump would be… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[8705],"class_list":["post-46230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-a-local-advocate-for-felons-voting-rights-cries-foul-after-gov-desantis-promises-clemency-for-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46231,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46230\/revisions\/46231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}