A federal district judge has cleared the way for potentially hundreds of thousands of Floridians who have served sentences for felony offenses to vote in the swing state’s primary and general elections later this year.
Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida handed down the 125-page decision that found Florida’s Senate Bill 7066 unconstitutional. SB 7066 required that felons allowed to vote under voter-approved Constitutional Amendment 4 have to pay court fees and other debts known as legal financial obligations (LFOs) in order to cast ballots.
“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 or on payment of taxes, even those labeled fees or costs,” Hinkle wrote in his May 24 decision.
The ruling stems from a consolidation of voting rights cases brought by numerous plaintiffs seeking to cast their votes and such groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the ACLU of Florida.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a defendant in the litigation, has vowed to appeal the decision to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I think there’s obviously good grounds,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Miami this week. “No other court in the country has held this.”
The district court concluded that linking voting rights to a payment of court costs or fees represents an imposition of a tax in violation of the 24th Amendment. Hinkle’s decision comes on the heels of an eight-day online trial that featured oral arguments as well as plaintiffs and experts testifying via Zoom.
The court also put in place a system allowing those who want to vote to seek an advisory opinion about their qualifications without delay. The appointment of a public defender or an affidavit indicating indigence can be used as evidence of a potential voter’s financial status, the court decided.
“This ruling is not only a victory for our clients and voting-rights activists in Florida,” Nancy Abudu, deputy legal director for the SPLC, said in a statement emailed to the Florida Record, “but is an important step towards dismantling financial barriers to the ballot box across the country. The court’s decision also deals a serious blow to the Florida state legislature’s attempt to undermine the spirit and purpose behind Amendment 4.”