A New Law Will Restrict Ex-Felon's Voting Rights in Florida

by Jessica Chang

The background:

In November 2018, voters in Florida chose to restore voting rights to ex-convicts. This bill, known as Amendment 4, was passed with 65% of the vote and grated voting rights to people who possess felony records but have served out their sentences, including parole and probation. While the bill does not cover those convicted of felony sexual offenses or murder, it enfranchised almost 1.5 million people across the state of Florida.

On Friday, May 3, 2019, however, the Florida legislature rolled back many of the positive impacts of the amendment. In a 67-42 vote, led by Republicans and split along party lines, the Florida House passed a bill requiring all that a person pay all “court fines, fees, and restitutions” before they be allowed to vote. The Florida Senate passed a similar bill earlier in the day.

What does this mean?

The original Amendment 4 only required that people with criminal records serve out “all terms of their sentence” before voting. Civil rights advocates and other activist organizations claim that this means a person must only serve out their prison time and probation in order to vote. According to the Republican governor Ronald Desantis, however, the language of Amendment 4 is open enough that the state could require ex-convicts to pay court fees, fines, and restitutions as part of their sentences.

How is this going to affect ex convicts that want to vote?

This new bill, Senate Bill 7066, could affect hundreds of thousands of Floridians hoping to vote. The Florida Department of Corrections estimates that 40% of all restoration of voting rights cases still have restitutions and fines to pay.

There are two ways to pay off these fees - by actually paying them, or having a judge convert the fees into hours of community service. The issue with this is that having hundreds of thousands of people applying to convert their fees into hours will create massive backlog in the court system. Lawmakers have said that they expect each court to come up with their own system to handle these cases, which does essentially nothing to solve the problem.

Even more troubling is the fact that many of these people cannot afford to pay their fees. The Brennan Center for Justice reported that since 1996, Florida has “added more than 20 new categories of financial obligations for criminal defendants and, at the same time, eliminated most exemptions for those who cannot pay.” The fees can run up to hundreds of thousands of dollars; for many ex-convicts, who are overwhelmingly poor and people of color, they are virtually impossible to pay off.

Why is this important?

Across the U.S., an estimated 6.1 million people convicted of felonies cannot vote. The November vote on Amendment 4 seemed like a step in the right direction, but S.B. 7066 significantly curbs its reform of Florida’s criminal justice system.

Putting aside the proven benefits of re-integrating ex-convicts into society, S.B. 7066 unfairly targets those who do not have the resources to pay off their fines. Essentially, if you have money you can vote. If you don’t have money, you can’t.