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PART TWO. THE STATE OF FLORIDA WON'T SAY HOW MUCH THEY HAVE TO PAY BEFORE THEY CAN VOTE.
The second thing you should know about returning citizens is that although the Florida Legislature imposed a poll tax on returning citizens who want to vote, Florida won't tell them how much they have to pay before they will be allowed to vote.
From reporting in The New York Times it looks like Florida may be the only State in the nation in which the requirement is imposed on voters to pay court fees before they will be allowed to vote.
Part One of this series of articles focused on a couple of facts. First, most returning citizens can vote under Amendment 4 to the Florida Constitution if they have served out all "the terms of their sentence" including paying restitution when that was a term of their sentence. Or at least the two-thirds of Florida voters who voted for it two years ago thought so.
Second, the Florida Legislature said this could not stand. The Florida Legislature tacked on a requirement that all people eligible to vote under Amendment 4 -- meaning all people who had served the terms of their sentence including restitution -- would also have to pay court fees and costs to keep the court system funded, before they can vote in Florida. As The New York Times has said: "The fines and fees in Florida fund the routine operations of the criminal justice system and are not restitution payments to crime victims."
Parenthetically, 6 federal judges overruled millions of Florida voters and upheld the poll tax. They said that the poll tax is not a poll tax. It is fine to say that voters in Florida cannot vote until they pay Florida's court costs, they ruled. The 6 federal judges also ruled that the State does not have to tell the voters how much they have to pay before they can vote. By the way, the vote of these federal judges was 6 in favor of the poll tax, 4 against. There are newspaper stories that warn about them changing the federal courts as if that were something that may happen in the future. It is already happening. But that lesson will be the focus of another article. The focus here is on the vote in Florida in 2020.
Now you also know the second thing about this. Florida won't say how much returning citizens have to pay in court fees before Florida will allow them to vote. But if they don't pay Florida's court costs, they cannot vote. This is not "Catch 22" because that was fiction and this is not. Call it "Catch 2020."
Next: The Third and Final Thing.
In the meantime you may want to explore making a donation to pay the court costs imposed on returning citizens in Florida. If you want to explore making a donation to ease this burden, check out the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition at www.floridarrc.com. Their deadline to accept contributions is September 24.
Please read the disclaimer. ©2020 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.