Gov DeSantis in new attack on Florida's voting system,tries to kill the Voting Restoration Amendment

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis says the state’s amendment restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals should be struck down absent the preservation of a controversial poll tax on such individuals. The state’s poll tax was previously ruled unconstitutional by a federal court.

On Tuesday, attorneys representing DeSantis and Florida Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee sparred with U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle over the fate of Florida’s Amendment 4. DeSantis’s attorneys argued that if it’s unconstitutional for the state to require formerly incarcerated people to pay fines, fees and restitution in order to vote, then the entire Voting Restoration Amendment must be thrown out because it is unconstitutional.

During Tuesday’s proceedings, Hinkle was highly suspicious of the legal claims and political motivations made by DeSantis and Lee. Reporter Gary Fineout noted that Hinkle wondered out loud whether the defendants were trying “to run out the clock” by gaming the filing system. Hinkle observed that DeSantis and Lee waited several weeks to appeal his initial injunction and then an additional two weeks to file their motion to stay.

The Voting Restoration Amendment was passed overwhelmingly by 65 percent of Sunshine State voters in 2018.

https://lawandcrime.com/civil-rights/florida-gov-desantis-without-gops-poll-tax-formerly-incarcerated-people-cant-vote-at-all/