LeBron James and Michael Bloomberg had a plan to sabotage Trump in Florida and thus deny him any chance at a second term.
It was actually a good plan – if they could pull it off – but they did not. Florida voters approved a ballot initiative to let felons vote in that swing state a few years ago.
The GOP elected officials then passed a law that mandated felons must pay their fines and court costs before getting their right to vote restored.
Enter LeBron James and Michael Bloomberg and other celebrities who thought they found Trump’s Achilles heel.
They would pay all the fines and court costs for the felons who would overwhelmingly vote Dem if they could.
They launched their plan promising big money and bigger results and the media crowned them heroes of the resistance and showered them with praise.
But now the results are in and they fell far short of their goal and my guess is if Trump wins they will get some of the blame.
They paid $27 million and got less than 13,000 felons ready to vote.
Those numbers will not swing the election – yes it will be close but turnout is at historic levels so whoever gets out their base tomorrow wins.
These 13,000 votes, if they all vote, which they won’t (and they won’t all be for Biden) are statistically insignificant with 10 million people voting.
You should have burned your guys, or given it to St. Jude’s.
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.
Although the modest increase in eligible felons falls far short of expectations, it could be large enough to make a difference in a key state where polls indicate that the presidential contest is once again a toss-up.
Among four of the state’s largest counties — Hillsborough, Pinellas, Palm Beach and Polk — about 32 percent, or 1,518, of the 4,700 felons who had their fines and fees paid by the nonprofit Florida Rights Restoration Coalition are registered to vote in the upcoming election, according to the Times/Herald/ProPublica review.
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.
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.
