With perhaps the nation’s most consequential election ever just one day away, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James has been stepping up his activism.
He has teamed up with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to help ensure that felons in Florida will be able to vote.
“The multimillion-dollar effort by Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James and other celebrities to pay off lingering court fines and fees for Florida felons could make almost 13,000 of them eligible to vote in Tuesday’s election, an analysis by the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald and ProPublica found,” wrote Lawrence Mower and Langston Taylor of the Tampa Bay Times.
Florida could end up being the state that decides whether President Donald Trump wins a second term or Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States.
In 2018, the people of the Sunshine State voted to allow felons to exercise their constitutional right to vote in elections.
However, earlier this year, the state legislature amended the law and required that felons pay all outstanding fines and fees to be legally allowed to vote.
It’s thought that allowing such residents to vote in Florida could be the tipping point that allows Biden to win there.
“Across the state, where the coalition used contributions from celebrities and other donors to pay about $27 million in fines and fees for about 40,000 felons, that pattern could translate to about 12,800 eligible voters if the proportion is consistent and they don’t owe other court debts,” wrote Mower and Taylor.
“The newly eligible voters in the four counties likely skew toward the Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden. In those counties, at least 80 percent of felons whose fines and fees were paid are nonwhite — including 74 percent who are Black. About 68 percent are registered Democrats, the review found.”
In recent months, James has been working hard to help all American citizens, especially those who are Black, easily cast their vote through his “More Than a Vote” initiative.
Among other things, it has resulted in Staples Center and Dodger Stadium being secured as polling places in Los Angeles.
