Initially, it seemed that Trump would be ineligible to vote in his own election this fall because he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records. The candidate is a resident of Palm Beach County, Florida, where felons must pay hefty fines, fees and court costs before they can vote, making it nearly impossible to know if they’ve met their obligations. But he was tried and convicted in New York State, where people with felony convictions simply can’t vote. meanwhile They’re incarcerated, and Florida is going to have to follow New York’s lead because it treats out-of-state convictions according to its out-of-state rules.
These rules mean that, barring an unexpectedly harsh ruling and pending an appeal he has vowed to file, Trump will be allowed to head to the polls in November. And he probably needn’t have worried: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) promised last weekend that the state’s Board of Pardons, which he chairs, would restore the former president’s voting rights if they were stripped.
This should have been the right outcome for the wrong reasons. Florida’s horrible felon disenfranchisement rule was enacted after the state legislature gutted reforms to restore felons’ voting rights that were approved by a majority of Florida voters. The rule prevents hundreds of thousands of people from reintegrating into society after serving their sentences unless they pay what amounts to a poll tax for them. Some citizens have been faced with bills of over $50,000. To make matters worse, the system’s lack of transparency (there is no database to help people figure out how much they have to pay) makes it vulnerable to the kind of favoritism that DeSantis has demonstrated. Who gets their rights back is apparently up to politics.
The trend toward restoring rights, as in New York and other (mostly Democratic-governed) states, is welcome. But the complicated status quo, where Northeasterners with felony convictions can vote in federal elections but Southerners with felony convictions cannot, is a problem in itself. Regulations essential to nationwide elections should be applied uniformly throughout the country. This is even more true if the freedom in question is one of the most sacred freedoms the Constitution recognizes. But in reality, the country is a jumble of conflicting regulations, where felons in some states don’t lose their right to vote even if they’re incarcerated, while in others felons need a gubernatorial pardon to regain their lost rights. The prospect of having to sort all this out, even as Republicans try to crack down on the supposed voter fraud crisis for political gain, is enough to deter many from even trying.
This patchwork situation is reminiscent of the 2020 presidential election, where the complexities of the process by which states cast their votes and certified their presidential electoral rolls helped sow doubt and confusion among supporters of the Big Lie. The Electoral Count Reform Act, passed as part of a 2022 omnibus spending bill, went some way to resolving the issue.
The confusing variety of rules is reminiscent of the 2000 presidential election, when a lack of minimum standards for voting equipment and procedures put the country at risk. The Help America Vote Act, passed in 2002, also improved the situation.
Congress should again step in and restore voting rights to all felons who have completed their sentences, not only to prevent a similar chaos from happening again, but also because those who have completed their sentences deserve representation.
Meanwhile, Trump, who previously opposed felons’ voting rights and called Virginia’s 2016 Restoring Rights Initiative an effort to enable “rigged politics” and claimed its beneficiaries “vote Democrat,” should still be able to vote. Those who support voting rights and oppose Trump should avoid falling victim to similar hypocrisy, even if they know Trump will vote for them.
