Florida lacking plan to let ex-felons vote

Top state elections officials tells judge process yet in place

TALLAHASSEE —U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle decided more than six months ago that Florida cannot deny the right to vote to felons who have served their time behind bars and are genuinely unable to pay “legal financial obligations” as required by a controversial state law passed last year.

But as a trial in a challenge to the law draws to a close, a top Florida elections official told the judge Tuesday the state has not settled on a process that will carry out his ruling and permit people who can’t afford to pay their court-ordered debts to vote.

“We don’t have anything final at this point. We’ve just been chatting about it,” Florida Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews said under questioning by Campaign Legal Center attorney Mark Gaber, who is helping represent felons challenging the law.

Matthews, a lawyer, said her office is “crystalizing” the process for identifying felons who have registered to vote and have unpaid legal financial obligations.

The legal financial obligations — court-ordered fines, fees, costs and restitution — are the crux of a class-action lawsuit that could determine whether hundreds of thousands of Floridians can vote in the 2020 presidential election.

With little more than three months before the Aug. 18 primary elections in Florida, Matthews said her office does not have a procedure for felons to show that they can’t pay their outstanding financial obligations, a key part of an October ruling by Hinkle that imposed a preliminary injunction.

“If the state is not going to fix it, I will,” Hinkle snapped during a March 26 telephone hearing.

Republican legislators included the requirement to pay legal financial obligations in a 2019 law aimed at carrying out a constitutional amendment that restored voting rights to felons “who have completed all terms of their sentences, including parole and probation.” Amendment 4, approved by more than 64 percent of Florida voters in 2018, excluded murderers and people convicted of sexual felonies.

Testifying in the trial Monday and Tuesday, Matthews said the state is weighing a variety of ways for convicted felons — referred to as “returning citizens” by proponents of what appeared as Amendment 4 on the 2018 ballot — to show they are unable to pay the obligations.

Under one scenario, Matthews said people could seek an “advisory opinion” from the Department of State if her office is unable to determine whether someone who registered to vote had outstanding financial obligations.

Advisory opinions can take from a week to several months to complete,

Matthews said

Mohammad Jazil, a lawyer who represents Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Laurel Lee, asked Matthews if it would be necessary to issue 500 advisory opinions in response to questions from 500 people who want to vote but can’t afford to pay their financial obligations.

“I don’t know. I don’t know that we have ever collectively done an advisory opinion,” she said. “It’s possible. Right now, it envisions that it’s one per question.”

The trial will conclude Wednesday morning, following closing arguments.