Today, Explained - We're gonna need a bigger vote

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

A ballot initiative on November 6 might re-enfranchise over a million Floridians. Demetrius Jifunza explains what it would mean to regain the right to vote. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was 1995. I was 17. Four of us together, we drove to a different county, Polk County to be exact, and we was involved in the armed robbery of a local KFC. No one got hurt, but it was a regrettable decision that I made back at the time I was 17 years old. We all had got away, but over the course of time, you know, people talk and one thing led to another and the Polk County detectives discovered who actually did it. We were all arrested and sent to Polk County and I received a sentence of three years minimum mandatory with 11 months followed by

two years probation. When I got the sentence, I was actually 18. I committed the crime when I was 17, but I got sentenced when I turned 18. There was no discussion about losing any voting rights or civil rights or anything of that nature there. The only thing the judge asked me, really, he didn't ask me anything. He just gave me the sentence.

I mean, it was very blunt. A couple years in, when I was actually in prison, you know, you get around other individuals and they tell you what you can and can't do and what type of privileges you have lost. And you don't hear about these particular stories until a person is prepared to be released and they start thinking about the things that they can actually do to support themselves when they get out. And the conversation of voting always comes up along with other rights that they have lost.

So for me, that was like the first time I really gave it some thought. Some depression did sit in because it was a question of what am I going to do now with my life? You know, I really don't know what options I have for me. And it really didn't hit you until you actually get released. But there was just a lot that was taken from me at that point. But the biggest thing was the self-esteem. I felt I lost that for a while. The presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush in the year 2000 was decided by 537 votes in Florida. Skipping ahead 18 years, this November 6th,

Florida might get 1.5 million new voters. It's all thanks to a ballot initiative, Amendment 4. If approved, it will restore the right to vote to people who lost it after being convicted of a felony in Florida. No other state comes anywhere near Florida when it comes to disenfranchising people who have felonies on their record. So this is a big moment for people like Demetrius Jafunza. Chapter president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition in Sarasota, Florida, as well as the vice president of the Sarasota NAACP. So when did you start to think about the fact that you weren't allowed to vote, seriously? I

guess when you got out of jail, you must have been, you must have been what, 21, 22? 21. But when I seriously started thinking about voting was like in my early 30s when I started to look at life a little differently. I wanted to be involved in situations that matter. I wanted to have a voice in the things. I got tired of just going to the meetings and being someone that's just talking, but the words never really meant anything because I can't vote. So that's when I really, really started looking into voting. And what did you look into? I wanted to know, what can I do to get my rights back? I mean, I had already filed to the clemency board to have my rights restored. But I just wanted to know, what else

can I do? Is there a way that I can get this record either sealed or expunged? What can I do to get this dismissed so I can go on with the rest of my life? So you apply for clemency, and then what happens to you? Nothing. I haven't heard anything at all. Even to this day, I haven't heard a word. And even when I go online and literally check my status, it shows up that record is not found. I know there's a record there because I did call to check the status. Now, I filed back in 2002. But when I called and spoke with someone from the Clemency Board in Tallahassee, they outlined that they just show a record of me filing in 2012. But when I went back and researched my information, 2012 was me contacting them for the status update on that.

Even to this day, I still don't have an answer. I would have been satisfied if they just would have told me that, hey, your rights are still suspended. You still do not have some rights. I would have been satisfied with that. But not telling me anything, that actually hurts than being in prison, if you will. And at that point, what did getting your right to vote back mean to you? Getting rid of that stigma, not carrying around that weight that no matter where you go, you have to check a box that you've been found guilty of a felony conviction. That was the main thing. It meant that I'm no longer in prison because even though I wasn't physically in the penal institution, being released and not

having all the rights that you feel are deserving or afforded to you. It's just like being still locked up. You're just not in that facility. You're in a much larger facility to where you still can't exercise your rights. Do you know the history of this law, Demetrius? This is an old, archaic law. I mean, it stems back 153 years old, right after the Civil War.

I mean, think about that. 153 years old. And here we are in 2018, and we're just not really shedding light and pushing the issue on this. Ideally, what this law was implemented for was to keep Blacks from being able to vote. It was a law that was implemented due to not agreeing with the Emancipation Proclamation.

So in theory, I can actually say that this law was birthed out of racist practice. But when we look at it today, it's a law that's affecting everyone from all backgrounds and all cultures alike. When we look at the statistics now, we find out that two thirds of the individuals who cannot vote are not African-American. So that's the reason why now I always say that this law is really a class issue instead of a racial issue. It was birthed out of a racial issue, but now today it's more of a class issue. So when you got out of prison just shy of 20 years ago, you could have gone anywhere. You could have gone to Georgia. You could have gone to California, where you maybe could have gotten the right to vote back for yourself. Why did

you stay in Florida? What does Florida mean to you? Well, Florida is my home, you know, and I have family here. And I thought about moving many, many times. I thought about moving, but you got to understand, we've come a long way that there's no need to move to have rights. We don't need to follow the Northern Star anymore. What we need to do is just fight. The state here is a part of a large country. And even though it has not agreed with other states and we're so far behind, and in a sense, we're still backwards as a state, I would say. It's still a good state.

But we have good people in the state that understand that policies need to change. So for me, I just felt that, no, this is where I come from. I'm going to stay right here in the state right here. And I'm going to fight because people have fought for me. So I'm going to continue to fight. What do you say to people who say that, you know, if you commit a felony, you forfeited your right to vote? Well, okay, that may be true, but the judge handed me a sentence. I've paid that debt.

And I'm a firm believer that once a debt is paid, it is completely paid. There's no need to continue to punish me for the rest of my life after I did everything that was handed down to me and is now living somewhat of a productive, successful life. Yeah, I may have forfeited it by making a mistake, but that mistake or that bad decision was done many, many years ago. I'm home now. I will ask those type of people that raise those questions, what type of neighbor would you have me to be? Would you have me to be the neighbor that knows and recognize the bad decision that I made has come from that and now is living a productive life? Or would you have me to be someone who feels that I'm spiritually bankrupt and I can't do anything. Because if I become that person,

there is no telling what an individual in those shoes might do. So now you're just two weeks and a day from having the entire state vote whether to restore rights for 1.5 million or so Floridians who have had their right to vote taken away. How does that feel? It's nerve-wracking because this is history. To change the entire state of Florida based on this one law, this is really, really major.

It will determine the future of Florida. So when we talk about butterflies in the stomach, when we talk about nervousness, All that is coming out. What happens if Florida gets over a million new eligible voters in about two weeks? The implications of Amendment 4. That's next on Today Explained. Remember Sheryl Sandberg and Lean In? The book turned into a non-profit, LeanIn.org, and now there's a podcast. It's called Tilted. It explores the

gender bias that lurks in unexpected places. Tilted is hosted by Lean In co-founder and president Rachel Thomas, and it features intimate conversations with some of the world's most powerful women in Hollywood, in politics, in sports, and business. In the first few episodes, Sheryl Sandberg helps answer questions from men on work and sex. Eva Longoria talks about women taking the lead in Hollywood. And a bunch of political types talk about the unprecedented number of women

who are running for office this year. You can listen and subscribe to Tilted wherever you get your podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher. They're also at leanin.org. I've been covering the restoration of civil rights in Florida for at least 10 years. This is Steve Bosquet. B-O-U-S-Q-U-E-T, Tallahassee Bureau Chief of the Tampa Bay Times,

which is the largest daily newspaper in Florida. I asked him how he thought Amendment 4 would shake out on November 6th. Organizations that are supporting the initiative have released a lot of polling showing that it's doing very well. A much more conservative group, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which does a lot of polling in state elections, shows that it's kind of a toss-up. Florida is one of the few states where to amend the Constitution, you don't need a simple majority. You need 60% of voters to vote yes. That's a pretty high hurdle. Having said that, just anecdotally, my extensive travels around the state talking to people, I think it has a better than 50-50 chance of passing. If not for this restoration of this right to vote, is there a way for someone with a

criminal background to get his or her right to vote back in Florida? Yes. And the way to do that is time-consuming in the extreme. It's cumbersome and it can be expensive. What you do is, after you've completed every term of your sentence, a clock starts running, and that clock runs for five years. At the conclusion of those five years, you can file a formal petition with the governor's office and request that your civil rights be restored. By civil rights, I mean the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, the right to run for public office, the right to own a handgun, a firearm, and you wait until your

number and name is called for a public hearing. This is a board of clemency. You go before the governor and three elected cabinet members at a public hearing in T is a board of clemency. You go before the governor and three elected cabinet members at a public hearing in Tallahassee. There's no law we're following. The law had already been followed by the judges. So we get to make our decisions based on our own beliefs. Rick Scott, the current governor, and the three cabinet members solely sit in judgment of your petition,

and they decide whether you get your rights back or not. So at this point, I'm going to deny restoration of civil rights. Thank you. Can I ask you a question? Yes, sir. How long is that? I'm not sure. You know, I think every case is different.

Well, what should I do with my life then? If I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and I'm trying and I'm making sure that I do the right thing I'm supposed to do, then how long am I supposed to wait? I couldn't tell you that answer, but today I don't feel comfortable doing it. Okay. Thank you, sir. So all these people who have been denied, who have been pending, who have been waiting, they might all get their right to vote back in two weeks at the exact same time. What might that mean for Florida to have 1.5 million new voters? Well, that could have a significant effect on the political dynamics of the state. We are a deep purple state where Democrats have an advantage in voter registration, but it's very small. This is a state where a number of people, many people who are registered

Democrats think and vote Republican. So Florida is a place of very close elections. Let's say, for example, of the 1.5 million people who are going to get their voting rights restored, let's just say conservatively, let's say a third of them, one third, still live in Florida or still call Florida their home and want to vote. That's 500,000 people. Democrats have about a 250,000 edge in voter registration. It's safe to assume that the people whose civil rights have been taken away because of a felony conviction more likely than not would register as Democratic because they are disproportionately people of low income or they're African Americans. Right. I think I've heard a lot of Democrats talk about this. post-Reconstruction states use these measures to strip African Americans of their most fundamental rights, the impact of felony disenfranchisement on modern communities of color remains both

disproportionate and unacceptable. But I think it has to be said in the interest of history and accuracy that for about 115 years, Democrats ran this state and Democrats did not see fit to reform this system at all. The person who reformed this system was Charlie Crist, a Republican, one-term Republican governor who basically said, if you met all the terms of your sentence, if you did the time, you basically got your voting rights back automatically, which is the way it is in most states. When Rick Scott came in in 2010, he and the new wave of Republican elected officials who ran the state decided that no, it was important that people, after they finished their sentences, they in effect served a penance, a period of at least five years before they could ask the state to get their rights back. And that's the system we have in effect today. It's been struck down by a federal court as being unconstitutional, but a federal appeals court has

stayed that order. And so basically the status quo prevails for the time being until we get this vote in November on Amendment 4. Do people in Florida like this harsher law? Do they think it's fair? There are people who feel as though the five-year waiting period is appropriate, that people should demonstrate and build a track record of law-abiding behavior before they get their civil rights back. We're going to find out on November 6th whether that's the prevailing opinion in this state or not. Steve Bosquet, B-O-U-S-Q-U-E-T, is the Tallahassee Bureau Chief at the Tampa Bay Times. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained. Terima kasih telah menonton! Thank you. All-Star Video Team here wants to hear your biggest questions about the world right now, like can we engineer a technological solution for climate change, or does it matter that C-section births are on the rise all over the world? They're going to pick 12 questions and answer them with big, beautiful videos, and you, the people asking them, will get to be in the videos.

Pretty cool, huh? Send your questions about anything, science, money, health, relationships, tech, government, anything to vox.com slash showme. vox.com slash s-h-o-w-m-e. Thanks.