Four years ago, Florida was an important component in Donald Trump’s surprising election success. In the US presidential election, the state is one of the so-called swing states, in which the decision between the Republican and the Democratic candidate is usually tight. Trump was ahead of Hillary Clinton in Florida.
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Now a court has inflicted a serious legal defeat on the state’s Republican government – with possible consequences for the November elections.
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Federal Judge Robert Hinkle invalidated a Florida law that would link ex-convicts to the right to vote if they had paid their court fees and fines. The law was intended to introduce an unconstitutional system of the right to vote against payment, Hinkle found in his judgment announced on Sunday.
As a condition, repayment is only reasonable if the person concerned knows the exact amount and is solvent. According to the AP news agency, it could take years for election officials to determine the amounts for those currently affected.
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An estimated 774,000 people could benefit
The decision paves the way for potentially hundreds of thousands of former Florida inmates to vote in November’s presidential and congressional elections. An estimated 774,000 people are affected, according to the AP. However, Governor Ron DeSantis still has the option to appeal the verdict. The Republican signed the heavily controversial law in the summer of 2019.
In November 2018, voters in Florida voted for a constitutional amendment that would give ex-prisoners the right to vote. Convicted murderers and sex offenders are excluded. Nearly a million ex-prisoners were barred from voting in the state by then.
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After the referendum, however, Florida’s parliament passed the law requiring ex-prisoners, among other things, to pay off all of their court fees, fines and compensation obligations before they were allowed to vote again. In the regional parliament, Trump’s Republicans are in the majority.
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17 former prisoners then sued the law. Judge Hinkle then suspended the law last September. However, his decision at the time was only provisional. Most of the ex-inmates for whom his current verdict potentially paves the way for election are blacks and Latinos. Traditionally, these population groups predominantly vote for candidates from the Democratic Party. In 2016, Trump won with a More than 100,000 votes ahead before Clinton – the equivalent of a little more than a percentage point.
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