TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday quietly signed into law a sweeping elections overhaul that restricts the voting rights of former felons, a measure civil rights groups have already prepared to challenge in court.
The law initiates a long list of changes to the state’s election laws after last year’s vote led to a chaotic recount in three statewide races, including DeSantis’ bid for governor.
But it also imposes restrictions on ex-felons who want to register to vote, a politically charged provision that has drawn the fury of Democrats and social justice organizations on the eve of the 2020 presidential election.The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, along with the NAACP and the League of Women Voters, are expected to file a federal lawsuit in Gainesville that will challenge the new law as unconstitutional and for targeting African Americans.
“We are ready to move forward with litigation,” Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, told POLITICO this week.
The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature added the felon voting provision to the elections bill in the waning moments of session, calling it necessary to implement a voter-approved amendment that ended Florida’s disenfranchisement of ex-convicts.
While Republican lawmakers said they were clearing up “ambiguities” in the constitutional amendment, Democrats and voting rights groups sharply criticized the move, saying the provision was meant to limit the number of new voters who could be added to the rolls in the battleground state.
DeSantis, in a television interview a few days before he signed the bill, said he agreed with the approach taken by GOP legislators.
“I think the controversy to me is not really substantive,” DeSantis told South Florida television station WPLG. “I feel confident that it was done in a way that reflects the will of the people and I think it will be upheld in court.”
In November, more than 5 million Floridians voted in favor of Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to released prisoners once they served their sentences, as long as they had not been convicted of murder or a serious sex offense. By one estimate from The Sentencing Project, the change could make more than 1.4 million people eligible to vote in a state where elections are decided by a razor-thin margins.
The measure crafted by legislators requires offenders to pay all restitution owed to victims, as well as fees or fines imposed by the court, to be eligible to vote.
Republicans who pushed for the requirements said they were following the intent of the amendment and complained that supporters had agreed with their interpretation before the measure was approved by voters.
“They are not trying to play games, they are not trying to keep people entitled to vote from voting,” state Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, said during debate on the bill in early May. “They are trying to do what is right.”
DeSantis himself had asked lawmakers to clarify Amendment 4 shortly after he took office.
Critics have likened the measure’s requirement that fines and fees be paid to a modern-day poll tax, which was still in place in several Southern states into the 1960s.
Kubic said the ACLU will argue that requirement that ex-felons pay all their court fines and fees violates equal protection laws.
“Your ability to pay should not affect your ability to vote,” Kubic said.
The lawsuit will also allege the restrictions are discriminatory and have a disproportionate impact on African Americans.
The non-profit Brennan Center for Justice in May released an analysis of Florida voter registration data for the first three months of 2019 that showed a jump in the number of released convicts registering to vote. Forty-four percent identified themselves as black, according to the study.
The lawsuit will argue that the restrictions will have a “chilling effect” on voter registration drives organized by the NAACP and League of Women Voters, Kubic said.
The battle over felon voting rights has overshadowed the rest of the elections overhaul, which was designed to address criticism that mounted against election officials conducting recounts in two Democratic-heavy counties in South Florida in 2018. Democrats filed numerous lawsuits challenging state election laws as the recount grinded on.
The new law moves the date of Florida’s primary election to a week earlier and expands the window of time voters have to request and receive vote-by-mail ballots. It gives voters two days after an election to prove their identity if questions arise about their signature on the ballot envelope. It also establishes ballot design standards to avoid the confusion that occurred in Broward County where the U.S. Senate race was placed directly underneath the ballot instructions.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine