Federal judge: Florida can’t stop poor felons from voting

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floridafan

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U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled against a Florida law limiting the scope of Amendment 4, a 2018 ballot measure allowing most felons to vote. He called the law, which he mostly struck down, a “pay-to-vote system”

TALLAHASSEE — A federal judge ruled Sunday that it is unconstitutional to prevent felons in Florida from voting because they can’t afford to pay back court fees, fines and restitution to victims, striking down parts of a law passed by Republican lawmakers and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis last year.

Calling the law a “pay-to-vote system,” U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s 125-page ruling declares that court fees are a tax, and it creates a new process for determining whether felons are eligible to vote.

"This order holds that the State can condition voting on payment of fines and restitution that a person is able to pay but cannot condition voting on payment of amounts a person is unable to pay,” Hinkle wrote.

With one sentence, Hinkle also allowed two large groups of felons to register to vote: those who were appointed an attorney for their criminal case because they couldn’t afford one on their own, and anyone who had their financial obligations converted to civil liens.

Most felons are appointed attorneys, and nearly all have their court fees and fines converted to civil liens.

For all other felons who can’t afford to pay their financial obligations, Hinkle ordered state officials to adopt a new process for determining whether felons are too poor to vote: they can request an advisory opinion from the Secretary of State Laurel Lee.

If Lee can’t issue the opinion within 21 days of receipt — and tell the felon how much fines and restitution to victims they owe, and how the state came up with that amount — they can’t stop the felon from registering to vote, Hinkle wrote.
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-po...ge-florida-cant-stop-poor-felons-from-voting/
 
One interesting thing in the ruling was the calculation and the state's admission that they couldn't figure out fines owed for some of those seeking to vote until 2026 or beyond.

When it comes down to it, the entire law is eventually going to thrown out because for even those capable of paying any fines or restitution, the state has no way of telling people what they owe. In some cases the court points out restitution doesn't go through the state and is paid directly to victims that could have died or moved so there is no way to verify payment. If restitution does go through the state then the state charges a fee which can only be considered a tax and any tax required to register to vote is unconstitutional.
 
The ruling also makes clear the amount the state says is owed by a felon must be exact and can't be estimated because asking for too much would be unconstitutional and asking for less would violate the requirement of paying all fines and restitution.

The court has said, the person is eligible to vote until the state can show clear evidence they can't. The means the state has to have the exact amount of money owed and can't include court costs because that is a tax. The state also can't presume someone can pay if they were declared indigent at the time of their trial.
 
Hello floridafan,

floridafan said:
You wish that was the case as do most Florida officials. Now that 10's of thousands of new voters may be able to vote, its got to affect election results.
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Florida has had some pretty messed up elections for a long time.

I remember they got caught illegally striking names from the voter rolls in 2000, and there were actually more of those than Bush won by over Al Gore.
 
floridafan said:
actually I was wrong, just looked it up again and the number is closer to 1.5 million. Even this current administration wont be able to cheat enough to offset those numbers
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Even luckier you...;) Get on that vote, will you?....lol
 
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