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  • The US Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Florida to maintain its law requiring residents with felony convictions to pay any back fees before being eligible to vote, a decision critics say disenfranchises several thousand lower-income Floridians. The brief order, which rejects a request to block the law, gave no reason for the inaction, and comes as the United States gears up for November's presidential election. Florida is a battleground crucial to President Donald Trump's re-election hopes. The ruling potentially could impact hundreds of thousands of voters in a swing state where presidential candidates tend to win by razor-thin margins. A district judge ruled against the state in May, saying the law -- passed last year by Republican lawmakers -- amounted to a "pay to vote" system affecting nearly a million people. An appeals court blocked that ruling, and the Supreme Court refused to overturn it. Three liberal justices dissented, including Sonia Sotomayor who wrote that the court's "inaction continues a trend of condoning disenfranchisement." "This court's order prevents thousands of otherwise eligible voters from participating in Florida's primary election simply because they are poor," added Sotomayor, who was joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan in her dissent. She also noted that Florida has not made it easy for convicted felons to even find out the amount of their legal financial obligations. Joe Biden, the Democrat challenging Trump in November, slammed the court's "unconscionable" decision. "Let's call this what it is: A modern-day poll tax," he tweeted. "We need to restore voting rights for individuals formerly incarcerated for felonies -- and ensure everyone can make their voice heard at the ballot box." Florida's felons who served their jail terms, so-called "returning citizens," won the unconditional right to vote in a 2018 referendum on a law called Amendment 4. It aimed to correct a 150-year-old law, designed to disenfranchise African Americans, that prevented ex-cons from voting, even after they had done their time. Amendment 4 restored the right to vote for nearly one million people, except those convicted of murder or sex crimes. But after its passage, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the law that obliged ex-cons to pay all their back court fees and fines in order to be able to vote. mlm/to
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  • US Supreme Court allows Florida to restrict ex-felon voting
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