Way, way back in 2018 the people of Florida did something that is very difficult to do: They passed an amendment to the state constitution.

Apparently, the good people of Florida finally realized that, given the systemic and deep-seated issues with the country’s criminal justice system, disenfranchising felons en masse might be an antiquated and narrow-minded philosophy.

Despite the demos firmly asserting its will that these felons have served their time, done their penance, and should have their most basic right restored–the right to participate in the demos–the governor and courts have done everything in their power to delay and obfuscate the implementation of the amendment and the re-enfranchisement of more than 10% of the state’s adult population.

The state argues that these felons have unpaid fines and fees from their convictions, and that the “plain language” of the amendment says the felons must complete “all terms of their sentences” Therefore, until such fines are paid, the voting rights cannot be restored.

Sounds so simple and sensible, right? Not really.

Leaving aside the massive problems convicted felons have finding employment after their releases, which would obviously impact their ability to pay these fines and fees, an insurmountable bureaucratic hurdle lies ahead.

Let’s say you get convicted of a crime. You are sentenced to prison and a fine is imposed on you. The judge knows you probably can’t pay that fine, though, so she converts it into a civil lien. You aren’t so worried about the fine because you are in prison. This lien gets pushed off to a collection agency. Now you are out of prison and trying to get your voting rights restored. How much of this fine do you still have to pay?

You don’t know for sure, and neither does the state of Florida.

Herein lies the more dastardly problem. Records for these fines and fees are so poorly kept and managed that even if a released felon had the money to pay, there’s no easy path to determine how much he owes. But if every penny of this undisclosed amount isn’t paid, you won’t get to vote.

Surely, though, these fines and fees are more administrative than punitive. We aren’t talking about multi-million dollar damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Once the prison sentence is paid in full, as it were, the remaining fines and fees could be handled in any number of ways: payment plans, garnishments, etc. And yet the governor is fighting tooth and nail for this specific reading of the clause “all terms of sentence.”

But why? Again, the prison sentence is the punishment. 64.55% of Florida voters agreed and voted to enact a constitutional change. What is the purpose of putting yet another obstacle in the way of restoring these voting rights when the vox populi was so adamant about what it wanted?

One can imagine, without too much mental gymnastics, that not increasing the state electorate by +10% is of signal import to a certain political party, given the skewed demographic makeup of the US prison population and the assumptions made about the political affiliations of said prison population.

Of the 1.4 million felons who should be eligible to vote, over 20% are Black. If, as is likely, a large majority of those newly re-enfranchised Black voters vote Democrat, that could tip a swing state like Florida against DeSantis’ buddy, Trump.

And again we come to a situation in which a Republican administration espouses a strong belief in the rule of law, individual and state’s rights, and change through the proper process. But when the citizens do everything they can to bring about change while maintaining order and going through all the appropriate and lawful channels, the Republicans in power balk. They simultaneously violate the Constitution for their own political gain as they prostrate themselves before the altar or “originalism.” Achilles got it right…