BY IRIS B. HOLTON
Sentinel City Editor
Last week, a capacity crowd attended the Hillsborough County Branch NAACP meeting. Those in attendance were concerned after it became known that the voting rights of several hundred convicted felons had been restored.
Earlier during the month, the Sentinel learned that the voting rights of 17,000 Florida residents had been restored. However, the individuals didn’t have knowledge that their rights had been restored. Additionally, at least 13,000 of those individuals are not currently listed as registered voters on the state’s rolls.
Mrs. Carolyn Collins, President of the Hillsborough County Branch NAACP said, “We had a capacity crowd at the meeting. There were both men and women, young and old. Some came on behalf of their children, and some contacted us who could not come.
“The list of names we received was not broken down by county. Ms. Yvette Lewis, Hillsborough County Branch NAACP Political Chairperson, should be given a lot of credit. She sat down and went through the list to get the names of people listed in Hillsborough County. She copied the 1,816 names of people residing in Hillsborough County,” Mrs. Collins said.
She further stated that the organization has created a Petition that will be forwarded to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The petition states, “We, the undersigned, request State Attorney General Pam Bondi to study the negative impact on all Florida citizens of the decision to change the law which extended the years required for felons to have their rights restored. The large number of former felons awaiting the restoration of their rights, the extensive backlog (more than or equal to 20 years) in Florida, the lack of the prison system implementation of the automatic restoration process, coupled with the lengthy time to navigate through the Office of Executive Clemency procedures, are some of the disenfranchising concerns imposed on the civil (voting) rights of a person who made a mistake in life and paid their debt to society. This is an injustice to the civil rights of felons and those persons impacted due to their relationship with felons (i.e. children, spouses, parents…). We also encourage Governor Scott and State Attorney General Bondi to join other states in re-implementing and supporting, rather than hindering laws that will initiate a process of automatic rights restoration for all qualified released inmates when leaving the prison system.”
Some of the individuals listed were never notified because they moved and did not provide a forwarding address, which made notification impossible.
Five years ago, then Governor Charlie Crist spearheaded the rights restoration rule. The names could include anyone who applied for rights restoration prior to the election of 2010. However, since that time, the Rick Scott Administration repealed the rule.
The rule was repealed and a new rule was proposed and spearheaded by Pam Bondi within months of her becoming the Attorney General in 2010. The new rule states that if a person is on a list to have his or her rights restored without a hearing, they must wait five years before they can apply. In the instances where a hearing is warranted the person must wait seven years before he or she can apply for rights restoration.
Whether a hearing is required or not depends on the type of crime that was committed.
Ms. Lewis said, “It was brought to my attention that the Florida Parole Commission has Restoration of Civil Rights certificates of 17,604 as undeliverable.
“Through, hard work and determination I was able to get the complete list of certificates. Then, I discovered there were 1,816 Restoration of Civil Rights certificates in Hillsborough County,” Ms. Lewis said.
Anyone wishing to learn more information please contact Yvette Lewis, NAACP Political Action Chair at (813) 234-8683.
