Tuesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz called for an investigation into billionaire Mike Bloomberg for “potentially engaging in bribery and vote buying in the state of Florida.”
Rep. Gaetz argued that Blooomberg is paying the “debts of felons in exchange for their votes. Not every felon…it’s just those that they specifically identified as the Biden voters.”
As reported by TCO and Axios, Michael Bloomberg has raised more than $16 million, which includes $5 million from the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition in an effort to help black and latino convicted felons in Florida to vote.
In order to be eligible, the voter needed to be black and latino, already registered to vote and have debts of less than $1,500.
White felons were not eligible.
A spokesperson for Biden said “The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy and no American should be denied that right.”
According to Forbes, the initiative “has already assisted 32,000 people weeks before Election Day.”
Joel Pollack of Breitbart writes “Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment restoring the right to vote to convicted felons, though the legislature made that conditional on the payment of all outstanding fines to the state. There are some 775,000 felons who still owe money.”
He adds “Theoretically, a white felon who wished to see his or her voting rights restored could challenge Bloomberg’s effort on the grounds of racial discrimination. Florida civil rights law bans discrimination on the basis of race.”
