The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request to block a Florida law requiring those who have been convicted of serious crimes and have served their sentences to pay outstanding fines and fees due in connection with their cases before voting.
The court order maintains the law in force in the state’s primary election for non-presidential elections, which is scheduled for August 18 with a registration deadline of July 20. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan disagreed with the majority opinion.
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“This court order prevents thousands of eligible voters from participating in Florida’s primary election simply because they are poor,” Sotomayor wrote, along with the other two dissident judges.
A District Court had blocked the law, but the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision by suspending the lower court’s decision. The Supreme Court on Thursday denied an appeal of the Eleventh Circuit’s decision.
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The law prevents approximately 774,000 people in 67 Florida counties from voting because they cannot meet financial requirements, according to a university study presented as evidence during the trial in District Court. Sotomayor noted that impact in his dissent, which he said most missed by not overturning a suspension of the District Court order.
“A case involving the franchise of nearly a million people is exceptionally important and likely to be worth a review,” he wrote, arguing that Florida would not have suffered the same degree of damage if the payment requirement had been removed.
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Until 2018, Florida did not allow convicted criminals to vote at all. Citizens then voted to pass an amendment allowing them to vote if they completed “all the terms of their sentence, including probation or parole.” Later, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill into the center of this case, which included a stipulation that before obtaining the right to vote, all previously incarcerated persons must also pay their legal financial obligations (LFO), which include fines, court fees, and restitution to victims.
Shannon Bream and Bill Mears of Fox News contributed to this report.
