Last night was one of the darkest days in Florida history.

Ron DeSantis’s signature rolled back Amendment 4 and reinstated part of a Jim Crow-era law created to prevent black people from voting. This racist law, a poll tax, was almost universally condemned and repealed by voters last year.

Voters agreed that nobody should be judged forever by their worst day. That formerly incarcerated felons — returning citizens — should have the right to vote and participate in our democracy — no poll tax required.

For the last few months, the will of the voters was carried out and it was abundantly clear to Ron DeSantis and the Republican Legislature who was registering to vote — it was black people. According to the Brennan Center, more than 44% of these thousands of newly registered returning citizens were black, even though the overall share of black voters in Florida is 13%.

The Governor and the Republicans in power decided they couldn’t let that continue. They had to stop these returning citizens from voting, and the best way was to create a poll tax in the form of court costs and full restitution of fees and fines. That’s because the average income of the formerly incarcerated Floridians who registered to vote between January and March is nearly $15,000 below that of the average Floridian.

These Floridians — citizens — simply can’t afford to pay a poll tax.

So, while it sickens me that I have to make this ask, we have work to do:

I’ll be personally supporting Desmond Meade and his organization’s effort to help pay fines and fees of returning citizens, and I hope you will, too. Click here for more information about We Got The Vote.

The ACLU is also mounting legal challenges to declare DeSantis’ actions unconstitutional. Click here to learn more about the work of the ACLU.

I also pledge to you that this will not slow down our effort to register and re-engage one million Floridians before 2020. We will work even harder, because ultimately the best way to hold this Governor and his Legislature accountable is to vote them out of office at the ballot box in 2020 and 2022. And we will.