On suffrage centennial, Black women fight what they call modern-day ‘poll tax’

Blair Bowie, who manages the Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote Campaign, warned Floridians at the end of 2018 that unless their secretary of state committed to an education and outreach campaign after Amendment 4, the state could follow Alabama’s failure to restore voting rights. The Campaign Legal Center filed Thompson v. Alabama on behalf of Treva Thompson, 51, a Black woman from Huntsville who completed her parole and probation in 2015 and applied to register to vote. Although she meets the requirement to vote under the redefinition of moral turpitude crimes, she cannot because the court system said she owes $40,000 in debts she can’t afford. Bowie said she’s helped a fair number of women who said their conviction was related to supporting their family: food stamp fraud, bad checks.

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