BREAKING: The Florida Supreme Court just ruled that people with felony convictions must pay off all fines and fees before they can vote floridasupremecourt.org/content/downlo…
But, important to note that the court is only requiring the payment of fines and fees "contained in the four corners of the sentencing document.” As @Taniel and I reported last year, many fines and fees aren’t included on those docs theappeal.org/miami-official…
Carlos Martinez, the elected public defender in Miami-Dade, told us he estimates that financial obligations are not listed on the sentencing documents for 90 percent of people with outstanding fines and fees in the county theappeal.org/miami-official…
As @Taniel notes, this interpretation is up to the individual counties and we’re likely to see a broader interpretation and more disenfranchisement in more conservative counties
@Taniel Seeing a lot of this. Florida voters say that when they approved Amendment 4 with an overwhelming majority in 2018, they did not intend for a poll tax caveat
While we’re thinking about the historic victory that was Amendment 4, here’s my deep-dive on the directly-impacted people who made it happen thinkprogress.org/these-floridia…
