A majority of Florida voters — including more than half of Republicans surveyed — told pollsters they support a proposed amendment that would add a right to abortion to the state Constitution. The poll from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, released Thursday, found 62% of state voters said they would vote “yes” if the measure appears on the November 2024 ballot. UNF also said 67% of Florida voters are “yes” on a proposed state constitutional amendment that would allow adults in Florida to purchase and possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use. The poll results suggest the measures could pass. Referendums require a 60% “yes” vote to become part of the Florida Constitution.

Today is Giving Tuesday, a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities, and that is what we hope to do, transform communities. State Voices Florida is a  statewide civic engagement organization committed to bringing together progressive Non Partisan organizations to work together in building power around civic issues.  If the progressive movement works together and speaks with one voice, great things will happen. We believe everyone should have the right to vote, and voting should be simple and easy. We also support reproductive rights, environmental justice, criminal justice reform, economic justice and affordable housing for everyone. Along with our partner organizations, we use data and technology, people-powered campaigns, and coalitions to collectively build a multiracial democracy that allows every Floridian to thrive and live in their full dignity. We are a member of the State Voices Affiliated Network, a network of state-based coalitions,

The 2024 presidential election is a full year away – and many of the rules that will govern the pivotal contest have already been written. The past three years make up one of the most prolific periods for election legislation in American history. Over 560 new laws governing our elections – many of them containing pages and pages of changes – have become law in states all across the country.

Andrea Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising, a nonpartisan nonprofit that leads civic engagement and helps to educate and register voters in Black and Latino communities, is just as blunt in her assessment of the leading GOP contender. “(Trump) built a campaign stoking racial animus with a promise to deliver solely for white working-class voters, and we saw corporations and the rich get richer and others hurt in the process,” Mercado said. “If he wins, we enter a new chapter in American history, as his playbook is no friend to marginalized people.”

CRETE, Neb. — This is what the future of American democracy looked like for Sierra Edmisten one evening this fall: a block of modest, single-story homes; the lights from the Crete High School football stadium glowing in the mist; families gathering for dinner after a day in the meatpacking plants. Edmisten was collecting signatures for a cause associated with liberals in a red part of one of the country’s reddest states. The ballot initiative she was seeking to put before voters would, if passed, require Nebraska employers to guarantee their workers at least five days of paid sick leave each year.

A divided federal appeals court on Monday ruled that private individuals and groups such as the NAACP do not have the ability to sue under a key section of the federal Voting Rights Act, a decision that contradicts decades of precedent and could further erode protections under the landmark 1965 law. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis found that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires political maps to include districts where minority populations’ preferred candidates can win elections.

In the last decade, the U.S. overall and the South specifically have become more racially diverse, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. An analysis from the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice found that racially-diverse states governed by Republicans are more likely to implement restrictive voting policies. And three of the 10 states that had the highest diversity index in 2020 are in the South: Florida, Georgia, and Texas.  All three are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures that have passed restrictive voting laws disproportionately affecting communities of color. So far this year, at least 14 states have implemented laws making it more difficult to cast a ballotthat will be in place for the 2024 election.

Last fall, the Movement Advancement Project released The ID Divide: How barriers to ID impact different communities and affect everyone. The analysis outlines in grave detail how barriers to obtaining IDs can impact one’s daily life, including voting, which communities are most harmed by restrictive policies and the ways that policymakers can address systemic inequities and barriers that make IDs inaccessible for too many Americans. Photo by Judson McCranie

Civil rights groups and local leaders are kicking off a campaign to register more Black Floridians to vote in the next election.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody unholstered one bogeyman after another in urging the state Supreme Court to deny Floridians even the opportunity to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment enshrining abortion rights. Her legal brief in a procedural matter is a nakedly political assault on privacy, freedom, medicine — and even the English language itself. The court should see through this maneuvering and allow Floridians to address this issue through the democratic process.

Jacksonville’s Mayor continues to push for the removal of a Jim Crow era statue from the former Confederate Park. But she notes there’s little “interest” from the City Council in removing the obelisk paying tribute to the “Women of the Southland.” During an interview on WJCT, Donna Deegan said the $500,000 the Mayor’s Office has requested for monument removal “has to go through Council and that is something Council is not interested in doing.”

Four advocacy groups have gone to an appeals court after a federal judge rejected a lawsuit challenging a Florida requirement for “wet” signatures on voter-registration forms. Vote.org, the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, the Florida NAACP and Disability Rights Florida filed a notice last week that was a first step in appealing the Oct. 30 ruling by U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor. As is common, the notice did not detail arguments the groups will make at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Nearly a quarter of a million children were ineligible for Medicaid as the state is about halfway through its redetermination process, in which the Department of Children and Family Services is reevaluating eligibility for 5.5 million Floridians. So far, DCF has disenrolled around 260,000 children from Medicaid across the state. The state plan was to have those qualifying children enter Florida’s kid healthcare plan… Only 25,000 have enrolled.

One in 5 voters with disabilities either needed assistance or had difficulty voting in 2022 — three times the rate of people without disabilities, according to the most recent survey from the U.S. Election Assistance Committee (EAC). The survey report, “Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections,” highlights the difficulties faced by the estimated 30 million Americans with disabilities who are eligible to vote and the subsequent negative impact on their civic engagement.

In Marion County, Fla., elections supervisor Wesley Wilcox has stopped using the word “misinformation.” Not because lies or misleading rumors about elections are any less prevalent in his county than the rest of the country. Wilcox says he regularly interacts with groups that aim to find what they see as rampant fraud in elections.

In response to the recent controversy surrounding African American history standards in public schools, Senator Shevrin Jones, a Democrat from Miami Gardens, has introduced a proposal aimed at preventing the inclusion of any instruction suggesting that enslaved people benefited from slavery in any way.

As a minority voter in the United States, I have experienced firsthand the detrimental effects of gerrymandering on our democratic process. Gerrymandering, a practice that involves manipulating electoral boundaries to favor a particular political party, has long been a cause for concern. With reference to the insightful article from the NYC Daily Post on the overview of political segregation and gerrymandering, I will shed light on how this practice disproportionately affects minority communities.

At first Salanda Benton didn’t think enough people were paying attention to what she felt was the unraveling of civil rights happening in Florida. It angered her, then saddened her as state officials banned books and restricted the teaching of Black history. ‘I can’t believe it’s 2023 and we’re going through this,’ said Benton, executive director of the Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Salandra Benton is Executive Director of the Florida Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

An appeals court Tuesday took up a battle about the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature last year, and some judges appeared skeptical of the challenge filed by voting rights groups.

She said they timed this week’s stop and voter canvassing to correspond with the Florida Classic, the annual matchup between HBCU football teams from Bethune Cookman University and FAMU, in order to reach young people attending the game.

Last month, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen stood at a podium at the state capitol in Montgomery and announced what he called a novel way for his state to keep its voter lists up to date.

Republicans have been more successful than Democrats since 2010 at gerrymandering congressional districts to their advantage. But the Republican advantage may be about to fade because of a few court cases.

Early voting has begun across Duval County, but Florida keeps on making it harder for some individuals to cast a ballot — thanks in part to a few new bills passed by the Florida Legislature. We talked with Larry Hannan, communications director for State Voices Florida, about these and other changes.

We can only hope that at some point in the future, sanity will return. Earlier this month, the State of Florida withdrew from a nationwide system used to help maintain voter rolls and detect voter fraud.  This decision alarmed many of us in Florida who continue to fight for free and fair elections.

State Voices Florida, a 501©3 which helps grassroots organizations build year-round, long-term community involvement through civic engagement, called on Florida officials today to rethink new rules that make it harder for organizations to access the Florida Capitol building.

That’s where Election Protection comes in. Learn more about Election Protection from our own State Voices Florida Operations Manager, Leonardo Placeres.

Floridians across the state are hearing a lot about redistricting.If you’re not sure what it is, and its significance in the fight for a healthy democracy and political power for Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, you’re in the right place.

Registering and voting is as easy as pie. It’s true. Possibly even easier. All you have to do to register is visit our Rock the Vote website and go ahead and register! It only takes about five minutes. Once you’ve registered, you’re all ready to cast your ballot at your local polling station.