Name: Gov. Ron DeSantis: Ex-felons voting despite fines, fees would ‘corrupt’ elections, asks for stay of ruling
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Gov. Ron DeSantis: Ex-felons voting despite fines, fees would ‘corrupt’ elections, asks for stay of ruling

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AdvertisementBy News Service of FloridaJun 18, 2020 at 4:02 pmTALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking a federal appeals court to put on hold a ruling that would pave the way for hundreds of thousands of Floridians who have been convicted of felonies to register and vote in November, arguing the decision could “corrupt” the integrity of the state’s elections.The Republican governor Wednesday requested that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issue a stay as his administration fights a lower-court ruling about a 2019 state law aimed at carrying out a constitutional amendment that restored the voting rights of felons “who have completed all terms of their sentences, including parole and probation.”AdvertisementVoting-rights and civil-rights groups filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of part of the 2019 law that requires felons to pay “legal financial obligations” — fees, fines, costs and restitution — associated with their convictions to be eligible to vote.U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ruled in October that the state cannot deny the right to vote to someone who is “genuinely unable to pay.” He cemented the ruling last month and laid out a process for the state to use in determining felons’ voting eligibility. He also issued a ruling Sunday that rejected a stay sought by DeSantis.AdvertisementIn a 35-page brief filed Wednesday, the state’s lawyers argued that the 2019 law should not be overturned.WeeklyGet latest updates political news from Central Florida and across the state. &gt; “Here, Florida’s interest in punishing a felony is not satisfied until all the terms of a felon’s sentence are completed in full,” the brief said. “This is true whether the uncompleted term at issue is a period of incarceration or a fine and regardless of why the term remains unsatisfied.”Hinkle’s ruling in May established a way for the vast majority of the felons who have been banned from participating in elections to register and vote, based on their financial status at the time they were convicted and their voting rights were stripped.Hinkle in October issued a preliminary injunction in the dispute. A three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld that injunction in February.The DeSantis administration on Wednesday bashed the three-judge panel’s decision, saying its analysis was based on a faulty premise that conditioning felons’ voting rights on payment of financial obligations is wealth-based discrimination.It is “entirely rational for the people of Florida to insist that felons repay their debt to society in full before they can rejoin the electorate, and that is true even for those unable to pay and even if the majority of felons are unable to pay,” they argued.In a sharply worded order issued Sunday, Hinkle refused to grant the state’s request to block his order from going into effect while the appeal is pending.“No matter how many times the state asserts the contrary, a statute that punishes some individuals more harshly based only on wealth, or that irrationally conditions eligibility to vote on wealth, is unconstitutional,” wrote Hinkle, who has repeatedly branded the state law as a “pay-to-vote” system. Advertisement

AdvertisementBy News Service of FloridaJun 18, 2020 at 4:02 pmTALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking a federal appeals court to put on hold a ruling that would pave the way for hundreds of thousands of Floridians who have been convicted of felonies to register and vote in November, arguing the decision could “corrupt” the integrity of the state’s elections.The Republican governor Wednesday requested that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issue a stay as his administration fights a lower-court ruling about a 2019 state law aimed at carrying out a constitutional amendment that...

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Gov. Ron DeSantis: Ex-felons voting despite fines, fees would ‘corrupt’ elections, asks for stay of ruling

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