A new proposal by the Florida Division of Elections seeks to end confusion around restoration of voting rights. If passed, people with felony convictions would have the chance to request a formal opinion stating definitively whether their voting rights have been restored, reports the Prison Journalism Project. Proponents say that the move will clarify a complicated state statute that governs the process of reinstating voting rights for formerly incarcerated people. “We wanted to figure out a simple question: Whose job is it to determine voter eligibility?” said Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. The process will also provide protection for people who might otherwise be at risk of arrested for voter fraud. Forty-one formerly incarcerated people were arrested in 2022 and 2023 for voter fraud in Florida, according to Southern Poverty Law Center. At least some of them had attempted to vote based on honest misunderstandings of the state statute.
Disenfrachisement is a massive issue in Florida, which disenfranchises nearly 1.5 million people with felony convictions, more than any other state in the nation, according to 2023 information from The Sentencing Project. The state statute in question, SS 98.0751, dictates that for all crimes other than murder or sex offenses, restoration of voting rights is contingent upon sentence completion, including parole or probation and the satisfaction of all court-ordered fines and fees. People convicted of murder or sex offenses must seek additional permission in the form of clemency from a state-appointed board. But this alone doesn’t definitively answer the question of eligibility - many people are not even aware of all the fines they owe post-incarceration, let alone the offense-specific guidelines laid out in the statute. Meade said the proposed process, including a special form, would affirmatively address these issues.