A federal appeals court on Wednesday sided with ex-felons who sued Florida over a recent GOP law that undermined a 2018 constitutional amendment giving ex-felons the right to vote in the state.
Previously, a district court temporarily halted the new law from preventing those ex-felons from voting because they had not paid back various court fees and were too poor to do so. The law, requiring that ex-felons pay off all court fees before they regain the right to vote, was passed by Republicans last summer.
A panel of judges from the the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that lower court’s order on Wednesday.
The move was the latest shot in a complicated and escalating legal fight over the felon enfranchisement constitutional amendment, known as Amendment 4, that was broadly approved by Florida voters in 2018.
Read the appeals court decision below:
