This is an absolute fucking lie. The requirement to pay was enacted by the legislature. I’m at a complete loss for words. I can usually find humor but there is a good chance this bullshit flips the election.
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It really is frustrating that the GOP has plan A, B and C. The will of the people is just plan A. If that fails we move on to the next phase.
Dems have - plan A.
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“costs” - that’s a nice objective hard to game standard
5 Trump appointees plus the writer of the opinion. They all know the judiciary is the only thing standing between the people and the end of the Republican Party.
Another guy who knows it: John Roberts.
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Bill Pryor is a former Alabama attorney general and Class A deplorable. You’ll find him in every gop short list for SCOTUS. Truly terrible. It’s like if you made Jeff Sessions a judge.
Remember him and idiots like him when people try to rehab Chimpy Dubya McSlingblade.
My biggest fear for this election is John Roberts penning a 5-4 opinion giving Trump a second term.
Whatever instincts toward decency he may have, he fundamentally understands that the conservative movement is DOA if Trump loses this election. Including and especially the anti-democratic takeover of the judiciary.
Roberts’ vote in Shelby County wasn’t an accident.
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If I’m not mistaken, Pryor was one of the ones the Dems filibustered to keep from being appointed because they knew how abjectly fucking terrible he would be, back when you could still do that, so Teh Chimp used a recess appointment to blunt force the pos onto the bench. And here we fucking are.
Also, as I understand it, attempting to cast a ballot if you aren’t eligible to vote is a felony in Florida, even if you’re registered to vote, and Florida cannot definitively tell people whether or not they owe a fine and are hence ineligible.
This is truly an outrage.
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Right. And they are guaranteed to prosecute any former felon that votes with an outstanding fine. Great gig the GOP has here - they can’t or won’t tell people if they owe money, but once the people in question vote they can be jailed if the state then determines they owe money. To say nothing of this being a blatant poll tax.
It is straight up Jim Crow. An absolute fucking disgrace that is not getting nearly enough attention.
This could easily swing the election.
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Was feeling a little backed up today, thanks guys, better than ex-lax, smooth sailing now!
Even ignoring the poll tax aspect of the law, the fact that there’s no remedy even for somebody who’s willing and able to pay the fines seems even more obviously unjust than the usual GOP voting scam.
Hello, I’d like to pay my fines and have my voting rights restored. There’s an election coming up and I’m excited to participate!
Sure, what’s your name?
Freddy McFelon.
Here it is, according to our records you owe substantial fines.
Ok, how much are the fines?
We don’t know, it hasn’t been precisely calculated yet.
How long will it take to calculate?
Six years.
What am I supposed to do in the meantime?
You just have to wait.
What if I just give you a million dollars and you can refund the difference when you’re done calculating?
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Hmmm, I’m starting to think there may be something else going on here.
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It’s as American as apple pie.
Tell some redneck in Arkantucky he has to wait six years to buy a gun and see what happens
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It’s the same system that produced this.
30 questions. 10 minutes. Anything less than 100% is a fail.
This is who we are. Did the people who created and approved this test go to jail? No. They were forced to stop by landmark legislation that Roberts rolled back. That’s it. No punishment. No recourse for the people stripped of their fundamental right to vote.
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Yup. Sadly.
Right. This is a huge, wildly under-discussed point. The entire Republican Party is on a freeroll. They get to be evil, limited only by their imaginations, and the worst that happens to them personally is…nothing.
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Seems like simply voting isn’t a viable stragety
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It would be the equivalent of Democrats issuing an age-limit on voting. It standing for 100 years. Then Republicans finally rolling it back. No harm no foul.
The problem on the Dems side is that they mostly just fight to preserve the status quo, thus turning these issues into Republican freerolls.
There seems to be growing awareness among the pundit class that if Democrats happen to sweep this election they have to use it to make structural improvements or else they’re drawing dead to actually make things better for a generation. I’ve seen no indication actual Democratic Senators are on board.
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