"Absolutely convicted felons who have served their sentence should have identical rights to anyone else.
If not, then there is no democratic republic anymore".
So, republicans are in favor of convicted felons, owning weapons but put every roadblock up to prevent the same people from voting.
Florida’s longstanding policy of preventing anyone with a felony conviction from voting. First implemented in the 19th century, the policy was used as a cudgel of white supremacy
during the Jim Crow era to disenfranchise African Americans after they formally gained the right to vote. By 2016, it had become one of the most potent forms of voter suppression in the United States, blocking up to 1.4 million people in Florida – including
more than 21% of eligible Black voters – from being able to vote.
On election night in 2018, Meade and Wright would find out that 64.5% of Floridians had voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to end the policy. More than
5.1 million people – more than voted for Ron DeSantis, the Republican elected governor that evening – were in favor of the measure. The referendum – often referred to as amendment 4 – was one of the most dramatic expansions of the right to vote in US history since the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
When lawmakers returned to Tallahassee in the spring of 2019, however, it quickly became clear they were uninterested in simply clarifying the ambiguities. They wanted to render it toothless.
In the Florida house of representatives, Jamie Grant, a Republican, pushed through a bill that required anyone with a felony conviction to repay all fines, fees, court costs and restitution before someone could vote again.
'Either you have equality or you have a dictatorship'.
"There is nothing in between".
YEP.