Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on June 7 suggested on X that former President Donald Trump is still eligible to vote in Florida, his home state, even though he is now a convicted felon 34 times over. DeSantis is correct, though not necessarily for all the reason he stated on X.
“Former President Donald Trump hasn’t lost his voting rights in Florida. Rights are not removed in Florida where they haven’t yet been stripped in the convicting jurisdiction,” he wrote accurately. The rest of his statement was not relevant or, in part, accurate (an allusion to Florida’s Clemency Board was more bombastic than applicable.)
When we asked Flagler County Supervisor of Elections Kaiti Lenhart whether Floridians convicted of one or more felonies in another state are eligible to vote in Florida, she referred us to the Division of Elections’ page that lays out the standards of Amendment 4 (see below).
For felons convicted in another state, the prohibition to vote in Florida applies only if the state where the felon was convicted prohibits the felon from voting after being released. In other words, Florida follows the other state’s rules in so far as felon voting rights are concerned. Florida was one of just four states disallowing felons released from prison from voting until 65 percent of Floridians approved Amendment 4 in 2018, requiring the restoration of felons’ voting rights upon release. The Florida Legislature, with Flagler County’s Rep. Paul Renner leading the charge, emasculated the amendment by passing a law requiring felons to pay all their court costs, fines and restitution before regaining their right to vote.
Despite the numerous legal liabilities Trump continues to incur beyond his felony conviction, including a civil trial that found him liable for raping a woman, to whom he owes $5 million, Florida’s poll-tax-like barrier to restoration does not apply in New York, which, like most other states, restores felons’ voting rights upon release. In a couple of cases (Vermont and Maine) felons can vote even while in prison. In New York, felons who are not in jail or prison may vote even if they are on parole or probation, or had their prison sentence suspended.
In sum, Donald Trump would be eligible to vote as of today, assuming he is not jailed at his July sentencing. A New York jury found him guilty on 34 felonies on May 31 following a trial on charges stemming from what the Associated Press described as “a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.” Trump is scheduled for sentencing by New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Manuel Merchan on July 16.
Even if Trump were jailed in New York, he could become eligible to vote again as soon as he is released, if the jail sentence does not overlap with Election Day.
AMENDMENT 4: STANDARDS GOVERNING ELIGIBILITY TO VOTE AFTER A FELONY CONVICTION
What laws govern eligibility for restoring voting rights?
The eligibility requirements to restore voting rights are found in the Florida Constitution and Florida Statutes. See specifically, section 4, Article VI, Fla. Const., and section 98.0751, Fla. Stat.
What standards govern eligibility to vote after a felony conviction?
- A felony conviction in Florida for murder or a sexual offense makes a person ineligible to vote in Florida unless and until the person’s right to vote is restored by the State Clemency Board.
- For any other felony conviction in Florida, a person is eligible to register and vote if the person has completed all terms of his or her sentence. Completion of the sentence means:
o Prison or jail time;
o Parole, probation, or other forms of supervision; and
o Payment of the total amount of all fines, fees, costs, and restitution ordered as part of the felony sentence.
Note: Such person may alternatively apply to have his or her right to vote restored by the State Clemency Board.
- A felony conviction in another state makes a person ineligible to vote in Florida only if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the state where the person was convicted.
- An offense on which a person was not adjudicated guilty does not make a person ineligible to vote.
- A misdemeanor conviction does not make a person ineligible to vote.
JimboXYZ says
So how does that work in Delaware, is Hunter Biden allowed to vote, now that he is a convicted felon just the same 1X, 3X 34X, doesn’t matter. Who gets credit for killing the HB laptop story in an election year to influence an election outcome. That’s if you truly believe HRC won in 2016, elections are fair & it wasn’t election interference by the Russians ? Are any of the Biden Family ever going to be eligible to vote when the dust settles. Had the DOJ done it right, perhaps HRC wouldn’t have been or able to vote for scrubbing a server of evidence.
Ray W. says
What a rich fantasy life you live in, JimboXYZ! The world of prosecutors from different jurisdictions, state and federal, coordinating their actions in a nationwide conspiracy that could cost them their licenses to practice law doesn’t exist. Thus far, a New York State prosecutor presented enough evidence for a jury to convict former President Trump. A Delaware federal prosecutor presented enough evidence for a jury to convict Hunter Biden. The rest is political noise, not legal truth.
You have no clue about what happened in all the other claimed violations because you weren’t there. I don’t know either. You are talking to hear your head roar. I am not, because I am not furthering conspiracy phantasms.
JimboXYZ says
Ray W., Really ? They found HB guilty on 3 Federal Felony offenses, only they overlooked indicating a Sentencing Date on this one ? HB goes to trial for tax evasion in California in September ? All this is, a smolescreen for the real charges the Biden Family needs to answer to for Burisma and anything else. HB obviously guilty of the 3 gun charge felonies, I think he’s taking one for Family/Team Biden. Maybe they’re waiting this out to see what can be a relatively “fair” sentence when Trump faces his sentencing day which was rather concrete as established July 11 ?
But since you went there, care to take a stab at explaining away this ?
“Matthew Colangelo, who spent two years in the DOJ as acting associate attorney general, joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as senior counsel in December 2022 to focus on, as the office described it, the “most sensitive and high-profile white-collar investigations.””
““The fact that Colangelo stepped down from a senior DOJ role to join a prosecution team in a city DA office raises some pressing concerns,” Gooden wrote. “While these serious underlying issues substantially overshadow the integrity and fairness of the trial, the New York judge instead issued a gag order barring President Trump from raising concerns about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, and jurors, which includes Colangelo as one of the prosecutors.””
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/meet-the-former-biden-doj-official-who-jumped-ship-to-prosecute-trump/ar-AA1nxJFt
While I do agree neither of us were there to witness it 1st hand, I think we can connect the dots on this one. Like most anything else that has ever been claimed that dots weren’t connectable. I just don’t know of anyone that gets a guilty verdict for felonies and isn’t told when to show up for that sentencing ? Surely, that would never happen in Flagler County ?
Ray W. says
Hello JimboXYZ, when you start connecting the dots, as you put it, and when you start admitting that Trump’s signing of $2.9 trillion in unfunded stimulus money triggered the rise in inflation in this country, just as Biden’s signing of some $3 trillion in unfunded stimulus money triggered the rise of inflation in this country, you will begin to gather credibility for your comments.
The best term to describe today’s slowly lowering rate of inflation is Trudenflation. Every time you use the term Bidenflation, you lose credibility. We have injected almost $5 trillion dollars of unfunded stimulus money into a pandemic-shocked economy. The vast amount triggered a heating of the economy. Inflation started because of the overheated economy. Connect the dots.
Start your next comment with a comment on Trudenflation, and how the deleterious effects of Trudenflation have affected us all. Then talk to all FlaglerLive readers with your more honest face.
I have long commented that you have the capacity to be the intellectually honest voice of conservatism, but you commonly let the wheels fall off.
I encourage the intellectually honest voice of conservatism. I hope for the intellectually honest voice of conservatism.
But connecting dots as you so often do does not often lead to the intellectually honest voice of conservatism.
You actually think you know why a DOJ prosecutor left the office to prosecute former president Trump. A DOJ prosecutor can decide for himself from many different perspectives that he wants to participate in the prosecution of former president Trump. It doesn’t, by definition, mean that he is part of a conspiracy to falsely prosecute him. It can just as easily mean that he knows there is enough evidence to convict, and he wants to be part of it. No conspiracy in that scenario. Your might be right. Then again you might be completely wrong. Yet you insist that only your dots are correct.
I was in private practice as a defense attorney. I was approached with an offer to become one of the chief prosecutors in the 7th Circuit. I left private practice to return to prosecution. It was an opportunity I desired. I took it. There was no great conspiracy. I wanted to be the best prosecutor I could be, as I saw it. Anyone could have connected their own dots and come up with their own theory about why I did it. I did it for perhaps 50 different reasons. Each, alone, was minor. Together, they were enough to persuade me to change course.
You see what you want and think that only you are right. I ask questions. I pose questions to FlaglerLive readers. I use terms like possibly, perhaps, it could be, maybe it should be. I admit that there are multiple choices that might be good, less good, better, best. Yours is cast as the only way.
Consider this. Some judges set individual sentencing dates at the time of conviction. Other judges intend to put people on future sentencing dockets that do not yet have set dates. Some judges intend to sentence one defendant and give a whole day for that proceeding. Other judges intend to sentence one defendant among a group of defendants, each of whom will be sentenced on one day. Judge Blount used to hold a December Christmas sentencing docket each year. If a defendant was placed on that docket, he knew he wasn’t going to prison. Every year, Judge Blount would enter the courtroom wearing a Santa hat. The 15 or 20 defendants who were in the courtroom sang Christmas carols with him and then were sentenced to probation. Those who had pleaded before December who were placed on the January sentencing docket knew they were going to prison. All of them had to wait for the docket dates to be released to know what was going to happen to them. None of them knew at the time of their pleas their sentencing dates.
Please stop overestimating your capacity to understand what is happening in any particular courtroom. You know a lot less than you think you know about courtrooms. I am constantly surprised by what happens in courtrooms, and I spent over thirty years in courtrooms prosecuting and defending high-profile cases. There are plenty of excellent lawyers out there. Some are conservative. Some are liberal. Every one of them knew something I didn’t know. It was my responsibility to learn from them all. If I didn’t learn what I needed to know when I needed to learn it, it was my fault, not theirs.
You have your own duty to learn how to learn. You have shown that you are capable of learning. Start using the greatest gift from heaven that was given to mankind, as Thomas Jefferson so famously put it: Reason. To him, reason was the greatest gift from heaven to all of humankind. Then follow reason to whatever end it takes you.
Jefferson, in the famous letter I refer to, wrote to his nephew that since his nephew had just graduated from university, it was then time for the nephew to decide for himself whether God existed. Jefferson implored his nephew to use reason in that internal debate. He warned his nephew to not listen to others. The great choice was to be a uniquely personal choice. Jefferson wrote that if his nephew decided that God did not exist, the nephew would still be better off for having engaged in the exercise of reason.
Sherry says
Dear Ray W. and, others who still maintain their independent thinking ability, please do your research on the 2025 Project. Terrifying! Start with the Wikipedia page.
Regarding ole’ jimbo’s rants. . . he is just taking FOX/Newsmax conspiracy theories as facts. Same ole! Same ole! BS!
Jim says
JimboXYZ doesn’t operate in a world where facts mean anything! He rants about Hunter Biden but all you hear is crickets about Trump and his 34 convictions!
I agree with you 100%, Ray W.!
Michael J Cocchiola says
Hey, Jimbo… please take off your tinfoil MAGA hat. My head is spinning trying to make sense of your post.
What does Hillary have to do with anything in 2024?
Are you still convinced the Biden Crime family exists?
There was proven Russian interference in 2016… social media bots and Trump campaign principals in meetings with Russian agents. We have the records.
yes, Hunter Biden broke the law and was rightfully convicted. But, he’s not running for president. There’s a vast diffrence between and the Orange Felon.
Judith Michaud says
So, you cannot enter the Military if you are a convicted felon, but you can be Commander in Chief of our Military! That makes no sense at all! The whole world must be laughing at us !
JOE D says
For Judith:
Yep, the world IS laughing at the US…especially China and Russia (although Putin thought it was a TRAVESTY for former President Trump, as a country leader to be held responsible for past deeds)….wonder how Trump feels about his foreign FANS….personally makes CHILLS run up my spine, for fear of things to come.
I don’t remember a response from Donald Trump’s other BUDDY …the dictator of North Korea! I’m SURE he couldn’t have kept his egomaniac MOUTH CLOSED!
But at least, in the eyes of the FREE world…Democracy and Justice are BLIND (especially after the Hunter Biden felony convictions)…NO ONE should be ABOVE the LAW!
Wallingford says
It’s going to look strange when, if he would get elected, Trump would not get saluted since that is one of the consequences of being a Felon.
I think 10 U.S.C 657 precludes Trump from being Commander in Chief
Endless Dark Money says
he will declare victory no matter what just like last time.
Charles says
Florida isn’t Trumps home state, NY is born and raised, the only thing Trump has in Florida is property, his birth certificate is the State of NY. DeSantis will do anything to please Donald, that us who taught him how to play dirty politics, with hopes he can get brownie points.
Trump has corrupted our country and as his niece Mary Trump said he will bring down the USA with him and he is doing exactly that.
Sherry says
TERRIFYING! This from Wikipedia. . . Regarding the Heritage Foundations plan to destroy our democracy:
Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is a collection of conservative policy proposals from The Heritage Foundation to reshape the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.[2][3] Established in 2022, the project aims to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to the capital, Washington D.C., to replace existing federal civil servants—whom Republicans characterize as part of the “deep state”—and to further the objectives of the next Republican president.[4] It adopts a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory, a disputed interpretation of Article II of the Constitution of the United States,[5][6] which asserts that the president has absolute power over the executive branch upon inauguration.[3][7]
Project 2025 envisions widespread changes across the government, particularly economic and social policies and the role of the federal government and its agencies. The plan proposes slashing funding for the Department of Justice (DOJ), dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), sharply reducing environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuel production, eliminating the Department of Commerce, and ending the independence of federal agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC).[8][9] The blueprint seeks to institute tax cuts,[10] though its writers disagree on the wisdom of protectionism.[11] Project 2025 recommends abolishing the Department of Education, whose programs would be either transferred to other agencies, or terminated.[12][13] Funding for climate research would be cut while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be reformed along conservative principles.[14][15] The Project urges government to explicitly reject abortion as health care[16][17] and eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s coverage of emergency contraception.[18] The Project seeks to infuse the government with elements of Christianity.[19][20] It proposes criminalizing pornography,[21] removing legal protections against discrimination based on sexual or gender identity,[21][22] and terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs,[4][22] as well as affirmative action.[23]
Project contributor Jeffrey Clark advises the future president to immediately deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and direct the DOJ to pursue Donald Trump’s adversaries by invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807.[24][25] The Project recommends the arrest, detention, and deportation of undocumented immigrants.[26] It promotes capital punishment and the speedy “finality” of such sentences.[27] Project director Paul Dans, explained that Project 2025 is “systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state.”[28][29] Dans admitted it was “counterintuitive” to recruit so many to join the government to shrink it, but pointed out the need for a future president to “regain control” of the government.[4] Although the project cannot by law promote a specific presidential candidate, many contributors have close ties to Trump and his 2024 campaign.[6][30]
Critics of Project 2025 have described it as an authoritarian Christian nationalist movement[19] and a path for the United States to become an autocracy. Several experts in law have indicated that it would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers.[8] Some conservatives and Republicans also criticized the plan, for example in the contexts of centralizing power,[4] climate change,[31] and foreign trade.[11]
Background
Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts established the Project in 2022.
Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts established the Project in 2022.
The Heritage Foundation has been publishing new editions of its Mandate for Leadership series in schedules that run parallel with each presidential election since 1981.[32] Heritage refers to its Mandate as a “policy bible”.[32]
Joe D says
For Sherry:
How absolutely and horribly frightening!
But not altogether impossible, depending on whether a change in the White House occupancy occurs…our founding fathers would be turning over in their GRAVES over what has been proposed by SOME ultra conservative political figures.
Sherry says
@Joe D. . . the Heritage Foundation’s opinions are highly regarded by trump and by many of the right winged members of Congress. Please make sure this information is passed on. Those who are still sane, thinking, caring people need to rise up and support ALL Democratic candidates at every level of government. Fascist Dictatorship is now the agenda of much more than trump. . . it’s the majority of the Republican party. . . and, they have a playbook!
Endless Dark Money says
Its possible for felon to run but the house and senate can vote to expel any member they deem unfit to serve. He’s been impeached twice already dont think it would be long for number 3 if they manage to steal a victory in the first place.
James says
So who is going to be Trump’s VP? A rather important question wouldn’t you say?
At the risk of sounding like a deep state conspiracy theory proponent… he (Trump, that is) could be just the “setup man,” a dupe, “a tool,” for some other person or group… perhaps he was all along.
Just say’n.
John says
The House and Senate need to do what is right for the USA and our Constitution. The American people are sick and tired of allowing this con person get away with more and more and above all stop catering to him. He is just a regular citizen like anyone else so start treating him that way. It’s time the House and Senate does their job and if they can’t they need to leave office.
IMYellowstone says
I guess DJT can vote if the Governor signs off – Oh, part of the deal would be paying off all his court costs and fines. Let’s see how that works . . . Does it apply to orange folks?
Sherry says
Project 2025 is already happening. . . this from the Associated Press:
While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans.
And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business.
“The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America.
Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired.
Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it.
“It frightens me,” said Mary Guy, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, who warns the idea would bring a return to a political spoils system.
Experts argue Schedule F would create chaos in the civil service, which was overhauled during President Jimmy Carter’s administration in an attempt to ensure a professional workforce and end political bias dating from 19th century patronage.
As it now stands, just 4,000 members of the federal workforce are considered political appointees who typically change with each administration. But Schedule F could put tens of thousands of career professional jobs at risk.
“We have a democracy that is at risk of suicide. Schedule F is just one more bullet in the gun,” Guy said.
The ideas contained in Heritage’s coffee table-ready book are both ambitious and parochial, a mix of longstanding conservative policies and stark, head-turning proposals that gained prominence in the Trump era.
There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail.
There are proposals to have the Pentagon “abolish” its recent diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, what the project calls the “woke” agenda, and reinstate service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language.
A chapter written by Trump’s former acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security calls for bolstering the number of political appointees, and redeploying office personnel with law enforcement ability into the field “to maximize law enforcement capacity.”
At the White House, the book suggests the new administration should “reexamine” the tradition of providing work space for the press corps and ensure the White House counsel is “deeply committed” to the president’s agenda.
Conservatives have long held a grim view of federal government offices, complaining they are stacked with liberals intent on halting Republican agendas.
But Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said most federal workers live in the states and are your neighbors, family and friends. “Federal employees are not the enemy,” she said.
While presidents typically rely on Congress to put policies into place, the Heritage project leans into what legal scholars refer to as a unitary view of executive power that suggests the president has broad authority to act alone.
To push past senators who try to block presidential Cabinet nominees, Project 2025 proposes installing top allies in acting administrative roles, as was done during the Trump administration to bypass the Senate confirmation process.
John McEntee, another former Trump official advising the effort, said the next administration can “play hardball a little more than we did with Congress.”
In fact, Congress would see its role diminished — for example, with a proposal to eliminate congressional notification on certain foreign arms sales.
Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the separation of powers and was not part of the Heritage project, said there’s a certain amount of “fantasizing” about the president’s capabilities.
“Some of these visions, they do start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says — and that’s just not the system the government we live under,” he said.
At the Heritage office, Dans has a faded photo on his wall of an earlier era in Washington, with the White House situated almost alone in the city, dirt streets in all directions.
It’s an image of what conservatives have long desired, a smaller federal government.
The Heritage coalition is taking its recruitment efforts on the road, crisscrossing America to fill the federal jobs. They staffed the Iowa State Fair this month and signed up hundreds of people, and they’re building out a database of potential employees, inviting them to be trained in government operations.
“It’s counterintuitive,” Dans acknowledged — the idea of joining government to shrink it — but he said that’s the lesson learned from the Trump days about what’s needed to “regain control.”
___
Sherry says
To those who complain about contributions from Soros. . . The Koch Brothers have plowed 55 Million of Dark money into horrific Project 2025:
https://accountable.us/leo-koch-networks-funnel-55m-into-project-2025-groups/