Member Submission: Use Every Opportunity to Speak Up!
THE FOLLOWING IS THE OPINION OF ONE OF OUR MEMBERS AND NOT NECESSARILY THAT OF FLORIDA ACTION COMMITTEE.
As election season really gets going, you may be sent emails and text messages asking for money and polls asking you what your thoughts are. Please take a moment and fill out the comments section(s) on any polls that you receive. Also, you may be surprised to know that poll workers can actually see your replies to mass text messages. They may pass on your sentiments/comments. (Not so much with emails – especially the ones that start with noreply@)
Also, the polls usually make clear that you don’t have to donate in order for your voice to be heard.
Here is what I have been replying on the polls (where it asks for my comments) and the text messages:
I cannot vote. I am an ex-felon. I did all my time in prison, and I also did all of my probation successfully. I paid all fines, fees, restitution, and court costs. I fully repaid my debt to society and owe the State of Florida nothing. It is an entirely clean slate!
Yet my right to vote has not been restored!
Furthermore, I am forcibly interrogated several times a year at the local county jail with no right to refuse! I also have no right to remain silent during those forced interrogations!
I own a beautiful home on a beautiful piece of land (I was homeless with no money when released just 6 years ago). And I pay property taxes. I pay my fair share!
Yet I am forbidden from using the public parks, the public beaches, the tennis courts, the swimming pools and the other public amenities that my taxes go to pay for! I’m an American citizen and a citizen of the State of Florida.
This is outrageous!
I could understand this treatment if the science backed it up. But, after decades of study, the evidence is overwhelming that our registry system does not work – it only serves to name and shame our fellow citizens!
Bring restricted from those places makes zero sense after you served your time. After your parole is done, there should be zero restrictions and everything gets easier from that moment on.
Very well stated. I’ve been making some small statements on those polls. Your’s is an excellent example. Thanks for this post,
Well said!!
Most people won’t understand what the registry is. I wonder if there is a subtle way of staying that in a way you are comfortable with.
Well, G. I guess I just want people who read it to do a double take and, in effect, say “HUUUUHHH????” (I want to keep it deliberately vague.)
I want people to start to question why some US citizens are treated this way. I want them to say, “What registry? This can’t be right!” … “Huuuuhhh????”
I want to simply start their thinking process and help them to realize that there are actual, bona-fide second-class citizens (in our modern day and age).
Imagine that!!! … Imagine that!!
Great idea!!
Great article and thank you for stating your purpose for vagueness. Well done. Looks like something I should copy and paste with your permission.
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Of course you can use this! Publicity is our friend!
Brutality likes to hide under a rock – not see the light of scrutiny.
Very well put. Also there are citizens on the registry that does not have a Felony conviction, did not serve time but because of the registry are living a life sentence. Their families are also living life sentences without ever being charged with anything. I do hope people get curious an does some homework on The Registry.
You are not an ex-felon, a felon, or defined by the level of the conviction on your record. You are person who has paid their debt to society who should have their full set of rights restored and happens to live in Florida. Two tiers of conviction types is bunk and should be stopped. Unfortunately, in this country, the suspension of voting rights has long been used as a punishing tool (Felony disenfranchisement in the United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement_in_the_United_States). With the Fifth CCOA recently saying voting disenfranchisement is wrong for some convictions (MS: Lifetime voting ban for felony convictions struck down in Mississippi, https://all4consolaws.org/2023/08/ms-lifetime-voting-ban-for-felony-convictions-struck-down-in-mississippi/) maybe this could set up a SCOTUS review on the matter. (Rumor is MS could be seeking an en banc (entire 5th CCOA bench) hearing on the matter and no guarantee SCOTUS would grant certiorari on it either if the current circuit split on the topic remains).
You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to refuse these conversations with LE. You have the right to have a lawyer present. You have these rights which were never taken away from you despite your conviction. You don’t have to be arrested or even in an investigation to invoke these rights. They are yours regardless, but most often used at these times. If you can afford a good lawyer who is willing to go into one of these conversations with LE and is good at knowing civil rights, then take them in with you to make a point and record it because you have that right too.
Just because Sunshine State LE are not the brightest bulbs in the box and will intimidate people using their badges and big words with no bite (which SCOTUS has said is ok also), that does not mean you have to bend to their efforts. You don’t have to agree with them. You can civilly fight back.
I beg to differ, TS.
If I choose to remain silent, then they will simply say that I chose not to register. And promptly on the very first day of the following month, they will arrest me and charge me with a 3rd degree felony for “failure to register”.
So, I do not have the right to remain silent during these forced interrogations!
That is not acceptable. Personally, I’ll never talk to law enforcement criminals. If they are asking me questions about Registration I’ll tell them that I will put it in writing on their forms and that’s it. If they kept trying to talk to me I’d bring an attorney. And video the entire thing.
Don’t let criminal idiots play games. Force them to follow the law for a change.
But, Will Allen, doesn’t a written form carry the same weight as if I verbally give them the answers and they enter them onto a computer form?
Hmmm…maybe next registration I will simply verbally state that nothing has changed since last registration and then state that I choose to exercise my right to remain silent.
Hmmm…..
When you purchased the home in Florida, you knew the rules. If you want to live in Florida and vote in the federal election, just rent a home in another state that allows for voting. While living in your second home you can enjoy the parks, beaches and tennis courts. If you choose to live full-time in a concentration camp, you can’t blame others for your living conditions!
I take extreme exception to your comment, sir!
No place in America (especially for a US Citizen) should be a “concentration camp” !
I certainly can and DO blame others for my living conditions!
My “living conditions” violate the constitution and the law! They are a brutality, and brutality is never “deserved”! I am under no sanction!! (I have FULLY completed my criminal sentence.)
There ya go folks FAC and some have it right. We should all stand up for Justice. I know this registery is tough on everyone involved and yes we are suppose to think of others better than ourselves. Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless and please the widow’s cause.
There is an external moral law principal involved in all this and yes we all should stand up in this injustice that many undergo in this registry issue. Even equal treatment under the law in this registry is a type of robbery. I’m sure everyone has some measure of faith. Its all about Christian principals.