• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voting>

Expert: Law blocks most Florida felons from regaining voting rights

Bill Theobald
August 20, 2019
Expert: Law blocks most Florida felons from regaining voting rights

Clarence Singleton registers to vote under a new Florida law allowing convicted felons to regain their voting rights. This summer Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that requires felons to first pay all outstanding fines and fees, prompted several lawsuits claiming discrimination.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The new law requiring felons in Florida to pay all their fines and court fees before getting their voting rights restored would leave about 80 percent of them unable to register, according to research that is part of a legal challenge to the law.

Professor Daniel Smith, chairman of the University of Florida political science department, also found that black convicts would be more likely to be left on the sidelines during elections than white convicts.

Smith submitted his testimony on behalf of several convicted felons who would be blocked from restoring their voting rights as well as the NAACP and the League of Women Voters.


Nearly two-thirds of Florida voters supported an amendment passed last November to restore convicted felons' voting rights. But on June 28, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring repayment as a condition of registering to vote.

Within days several lawsuits were filed. They have been combined, and a hearing is set for Oct. 7 on the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction blocking implementation of the financial requirements.

The suits claim that the requirement to pay fines and fees is tantamount to an unconstitutional poll tax, something that was used to prevent black people from voting in many states until the 1960s. They also claim that it violates the Voting Rights Act because black and Hispanic citizens would be disproportionately affected.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Plaintiff Kelvin Jones, a 46-year-old black man who lives in Hillsborough County, owes more than $50,000 in fines and court costs. He is disabled and unable to work, making it impossible to pay the money or to hire an attorney to ask that the fines be converted to community service. Even if that were to happen, his disability prevents him from doing the community service.

Smith emphasizes throughout his filing that the conclusions he draws are only estimates because no statewide database is available showing how many convicted felons still owe fines or fees. Nevertheless, using data from 48 of Florida's 67 counties, Smith estimates only about 20 percent of the more than 375,000 people with felony convictions owe neither fines nor fees and therefore could have their voting rights restored.

By extrapolating his findings to cover the entire state, Smith estimates that 8 percent of the more than 140,000 black felons who have finished their sentences have paid off all the fines, while 13.5 percent of nearly 180,000 white convicts have no outstanding fees and fines and therefore are eligible to regain the vote.

Shortly after the law passed, the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the driving force behind passage of the amendment, announced a fundraising campaign to help convicts pay off their fines. The goal was to raise $3 million.

Meanwhile, officials in Miami announced a plan that would allow felons who still owe fines and fees to petition the court to modify their sentences, including converting some or all of what they owe into community service.

From Your Site Articles
  • Florida's new restrictions on voting rights for citizens with felonies ... ›
  • Movement to restore felons' voting rights keeps growing, and in ... ›
  • Advocates challenge Florida law placing restrictions on felons ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Florida felon voting rights imperiled amid GOP opposition ›
  • Politics cloud felon voting rights restoration in Florida - Reuters ›
  • Florida faces an intense legal battle over restoring former felons ... ›
voting
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone

Congress shows signs of bipartisanship with retirement benefits bill

Mario H. Lopez

Fair representation: More Black people needed in STEM today

Jennifer Stimpson

First instincts, second thoughts

Debilyn Molineaux

It’s time to build a global pro-democracy movement

Yordanos Eyoel
Hahrie Han
latest News

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Reya Kumar
5h

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Our Staff
13h

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

David Meyers
17 May

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Our Staff
17 May

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Robert Pearl
17 May

Voters head to the polls in five states, with GOP nominating battles dominating headlines

David Meyers
16 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
North Carolina primary election workers

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Leveraging big ideas
Memorial for victims of Buffalo shooting

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Media
Sen. Ted Cruz and Judge Amy Coney Barrett

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Leadership
medical expenses

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Leveraging big ideas