Can't vote but he thought he could be on the school board

That describes Clarence Shahid Freeman. Mr Freeman filed to run for the Palm Beach County school board. Unfortunately Freeman is a convicted felon, convicted of armed robbery in 1974 and paroled in 1979. Under Florida law he is not eligible to vote or run for public office unless Freeman applied to get these rights back. He didn't. This was all reported in today's Palm Beach Post.

Everyone does dumb things when they're young, I may have been able to excuse the robbery. Freeman's problems run deeper, he also was accused of child abuse in 1989, but pled out to a lesser charge. Then there's the fact that Mr. Freeman didn't mark a box on his application for voter registration when it asks yes or no if you been convicted of a felony. Also Freeman was acquitted of battery charges in 2000.

Side note- Florida's laws on ex-felons not being about to vote is controversial, but few know this. The law written by the Florida State legislature in the 60's was upheld by the US Supreme Court in the 70's. Democrats held the legislature till the mid-90's they could have changed the law. Only now do they want to, and want the courts to do it for them. Says alot about Democratic politics in Florida.

On top of all this Freeman makes excuses. None of his troubles are his fault, or he denies not filling out the application. Did Freeman think no one would find any of this out? Probably, and that's alot for his intelligence. At least all this was found out before he got in office.

Open Post- Bright & Early, Right Wing Nation, Stop the ACLU, Real Ugly American,

Clarence Shahid Freeman, who filed last week to run for the school board, is barred from holding elected office because he is a felon whose civil rights have not been restored, according to state records.

Freeman was released from prison in 1979 after serving time for an armed robbery conviction. In Florida, felons are stripped of their civil rights when convicted. Freeman would have had to apply to have them restored.
But he never did. Three years after leaving Glades Correctional Institution, he registered to vote in Palm Beach County.

County elections records show Freeman, 55, of suburban Boynton Beach, has been voting illegally for a decade. He cannot hold elected office under the Florida Constitution, which states that no one convicted of a felony "shall be qualified to vote or hold office until restoration of civil rights."

To regain his rights, Freeman would have to apply to the Office of Executive Clemency and have a hearing before the clemency board, spokeswoman Jane Tillman said. Felons granted their rights receive a written order signed by the governor, she said.

State records show Freeman never applied to obtain the right to vote. "His rights have not been restored," Tillman said.

Freeman acknowledges he never applied to the clemency office, never appeared before the board and never received a written order. Still, he insists he was told by his prison classification officer that he could vote when he was paroled in 1979.

"I don't think that's the truth," he said. "I don't know if they're giving you accurate information about my rights being restored."

Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said Friday that he was unaware of Freeman's issues until The Palm Beach Post informed him and that his office would look into the information.

"We will investigate the appropriate course and take that action," Anderson said.

Freeman said he believes his criminal record would have been checked locally and that the fact he received his voter registration card is proof his rights were restored.

"If there were any problems with it, it looks like somebody would have said something to me long before now," he said.

If Freeman were to register today, that probably would be the case. People who register to vote now are checked against a statewide felon database to ensure they are eligible. But that applies only to people who have registered since the state implemented the database in January.

Starting in 2000, the state distributed lists of "probable" felons to county elections offices, which were supposed to use them to purge their voter rolls of ineligible felons. But the list was riddled with errors that identified many legitimate voters as felons. That prompted many elections supervisors — including Palm Beach County's former Supervisor Theresa LePore — to ignore the list, which was scrapped in 2004.

When Freeman registered to vote in 1982, however, no such procedures were in place, said Charmaine Kelly, the county's deputy elections chief. Voters simply were required to swear an oath stating they were not felons or if they were, that their rights were restored.

The elections office received monthly lists of people who had been convicted of felonies from the local clerk of court's office and periodic reports from the federal courts or other counties, Kelly said. But those checks would not turn up convictions before the voter registered nor many out-of-county convictions.

"It's up to the person swearing the oath that they're telling the truth," Kelly said.

Freeman registered in 1982 as a Republican and was dropped from the rolls in 1988 for not voting, local election records show. When he registered again in 1994, this time as a Democrat, he checked a box on the form indicating he had never been convicted of a felony. Lying on that statement is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Freeman has voted in nine elections since 1994, local records show. He denies lying on the registration form and said the record could have been falsified. "If somebody's been tampering around with my thing, I want to see it," he said. "I have no reason to try to change it. Everyone knows that I was incarcerated."

Freeman was convicted in 1974 of armed robbery in Hillsborough County and sentenced to 75 years in prison, according to the state Department of Corrections. He was paroled in 1979. Freeman said the charges are bogus and stem from his demands for equal wages for his work as assistant manager of a Tampa-area Red Lobster restaurant.

In 1989, Freeman was arrested for felony aggravated child abuse charges after hitting his girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter with a switch. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor child abuse charge and was sentenced to nine months' probation.

Freeman admits hitting the girl but said the bruises were faked by the child's father. He said he took a plea to spare the girl from testifying and said he thought the charge would be cleared from his record once he completed a parenting class.

In 2000, a Palm Beach County jury cleared Freeman of sexual battery of a 23-year-old woman, who told sheriff's deputies Freeman persuaded her to come to his home in suburban Lake Worth and assaulted her in his bedroom, according to an arrest report. Freeman says he was innocent and that the woman was pressured to lie.

Freeman said he would confer with his supporters to investigate his voting rights but said he had no immediate plans to give up his campaign. He is the only person to file for the District 4 seat held by Chairman Tom Lynch.