Multilingual sample ballot for November 2018 general election. Photo: Catherine Wilson

Florida cannot bar felons who served their time from registering to vote simply because they have failed to pay all fines and fees stemming from their cases, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld a Tallahassee federal judge's preliminary injunction that the implementation of Amendment 4 — approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2018 to allow most felons who served their time to regain the right to vote — amounted to an unfair poll tax that would disenfranchise many of them.

A spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state will immediately ask the full court to reconsider the ruling. The Atlanta-based court

In addition, a full trial on the issue is set to begin in April.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, welcomed the decision.

"This law is a modern-day poll tax. This ruling recognizes the gravity of elected officials trying to circumvent Amendment 4 to create roadblocks to voting based on wealth," said Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project.

The GOP-led Legislature and DeSantis last year approved an implementation law for the constitutional amendment stating that only felons who have completed all conditions of their sentences should be allowed to vote. He and GOP lawmakers say that to regain the right to vote, felons must not only serve their prison time but also pay all fines and other legal financial obligations.

That was challenged in federal court by voting rights groups representing 17 freed felons seeking to overturn the law and register to vote.

As many as 1.6 million Florida felons who completed their prison sentences could regain voting privileges under Amendment 4.

The 78-page unsigned opinion was issued by Senior Circuit Judges Lanier Anderson and Stanley Marcus and U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, sitting by designation from the District of Columbia.

The court concluded the state system violates the equal protection clause. The financial requirement "punishes those who cannot pay more harshly than those who can — and does so by continuing to deny them access to the ballot box."

"Regardless of the political trend toward re-enfranchisement, there is nothing unconstitutional about unconstitutional about disenfranchising felons — even all felons, even for life," the panel wrote. But it found the enabling legislation prevented freed felons "from voting based solely on their genuine inability to pay legal financial obligations."

DeSantis' initial reaction to ask for a full-court review may be a function of math and partisan politics. The Eleventh Circuit flipped to a majority of judges nominated by Republican presidents in November. Marcus was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan to U.S. District Court in Miami and elevated to the circuit level by Democratic President Bill Clinton. Anderson and Rothstein were named to the bench by Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

Read the opinion:

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