Wisconsinites with felonies would have to pay off fines, court costs to vote under GOP proposal

[RandySF]

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Alexander Shur

@AlexanderShur
Wisconsinites with felonies would have to pay off fines, court costs to vote under GOP proposal

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Does that not amount to a Poll Tax?

Please correct me.

[CrispyQ]

3. Seems that way to me.

What if you had to pay all back taxes you owed before you could vote. Would rich people be okay with that?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. No, of course not, it's merely a payment to be allowed to vote.

Poll tax? Definitely not.

[Poiuyt]

2. Gov Evers will veto that

[gratuitous]

5. Following in Florida's footsteps

Florida voters passed a referendum that would restore voting rights to felons after they'd served their time. The Florida legislature, sensing that could mean a whole bunch more Democratic votes, quickly went about the business of nullifying the referendum vote. The easiest way to subvert the will of the voters was to fuzz up the meaning of when a citizen convicted of a felony had done his time. Was it when his prison sentence was over, and he was back out in the community? What if he was still on probation or parole? Even that was a bit too definite, so Florida Republicans decided that felons weren't truly free to vote again until they had paid off their fines and court costs.

The brilliance of this maneuver in disenfranchising undesirable (read: Democratic) voters is that nobody in Florida can state definitively when a person has paid off all relevant fines and court costs, which can be levied from unlikely or unsuspected sources. The person seeking to pay off all fines and court costs can't find what he owes or to whom, the courts don't have to keep track of proper accounting, and the state is definitely not interested in untying the Gordian Knot of the competing claims on a person.

Wisconsin Republicans are clearly impressed with the ingenuity shown by their Florida compatriots, so it's time for the Badger State to step up and disenfranchise more voters.