Gerrymandered seats, deluges of right-wing propaganda, and over 1.1 million people currently banned from voting, often because they cannot afford to pay court-ordered monetary sanctions. An estimated 934,500 Floridians who have completed their sentences remain disenfranchised, despite a 2018 ballot referendum that promised to restore their voting rights.
“Why are Florida voters so dumb?” is the wrong question.
A better question is “Why has the Civil Rights Division of the US DOJ under multiple administrations failed to intercede on behalf of these voters?”
The racket in Florida doesn’t hinge on “ignorant” people nearly so much as it hinges on segregation and political patronage. People who vote Republican are making a conscious and deliberate decision, with the expectation that they’ll get more as a mercenaries of a private corporation than as patriots in a public system.
You can argue their math is bad. But there are quite a few Floridians who have gotten filthy rich off the business-friendly rackets. They’ve got a vested financial interest in keeping the minority population under their heels, even if that does mean you get the occasional Congressclown who forgets to vote on hurricane relief until after the storm passes.
Gerrymandered seats, deluges of right-wing propaganda, and over 1.1 million people currently banned from voting, often because they cannot afford to pay court-ordered monetary sanctions. An estimated 934,500 Floridians who have completed their sentences remain disenfranchised, despite a 2018 ballot referendum that promised to restore their voting rights.
“Why are Florida voters so dumb?” is the wrong question.
A better question is “Why has the Civil Rights Division of the US DOJ under multiple administrations failed to intercede on behalf of these voters?”
I purposefully used ignorant instead of dumb
The racket in Florida doesn’t hinge on “ignorant” people nearly so much as it hinges on segregation and political patronage. People who vote Republican are making a conscious and deliberate decision, with the expectation that they’ll get more as a mercenaries of a private corporation than as patriots in a public system.
You can argue their math is bad. But there are quite a few Floridians who have gotten filthy rich off the business-friendly rackets. They’ve got a vested financial interest in keeping the minority population under their heels, even if that does mean you get the occasional Congressclown who forgets to vote on hurricane relief until after the storm passes.