While Florida typically presents significant challenges for individuals with felony convictions seeking to regain their voting rights, former President Donald Trump was able to cast a ballot for himself on Tuesday in Palm Beach without any issues.
Earlier this year, Trump was convicted in Manhattan on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
As the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a felony, he is scheduled to be sentenced on November 26.
According to Florida law, if a voter has a felony conviction from another state, Florida adheres to that state’s laws regarding the restoration of voting rights.
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In Trump’s case, this means he benefits from a 2021 New York law that allows individuals with felony convictions to vote as long as they are not currently incarcerated.
For many Floridians with felony convictions, the process is far more complicated.
“Florida is really behind in terms of its laws,” remarked Blair Bowie, director of the Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote project, which aims to eliminate felony disenfranchisement.
In 2018, a ballot initiative was successfully passed to restore voting rights to those who had completed their sentences.
However, state Republican lawmakers later undermined this progress by enacting a law that mandates all fines and fees associated with a conviction be paid—a requirement that can be cumbersome due to the lack of a centralized system for tracking outstanding fees.
This Republican measure, which includes the payment of all fines and fees, was challenged in court but was ultimately upheld by a conservative appeals court.
The litigation highlighted the disorganized nature of how counties maintain records of outstanding debts, which are often incomplete.
Unlike many Floridians facing these hurdles, Trump does not have to navigate this bureaucratic landscape due to his New York conviction.
“The bottom line is, it should be this easy for everyone, not just Trump,” Bowie concluded.
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