For months, plaintiffs lawyers have been trying to get Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration to reveal its process for determining whether potentially hundreds of thousands of Floridians are eligible to vote under a state law requiring felons to pay "legal financial obligations" before they can cast ballots.

The financial obligations — court-ordered restitution, fees, fines and costs associated with felony convictions — are at the heart of a legal challenge to a 2019 state law that Republican lawmakers passed to carry out a constitutional amendment aimed at restoring voting rights to felons who have completed terms of their sentences.

With a trial set to begin Monday in federal court, a flurry of recent emails obtained by The News Service of Florida provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the hostility between voting-rights groups who represent plaintiffs in the case — and who maintain the 2019 law is an unconstitutional "poll tax" — and the DeSantis administration, which has staunchly defended the statute.