There are a calculated 18,141 people in Escambia County who have completed the conditions of their felony conviction. 10,753 still have some sort of financial obligation to the court.

About 66% of blacks (5,367 of 8,109) have an outstanding financial balance with the court. By comparison, about 53% of whites (5,053 of 9,464) had a lingering balance.

Some 1,000,809 individuals have been released from state or county incarceration, and 774,490 are ineligible to vote because of legal financial obligations.

A new report estimates there are more than 10,000 ex-offenders in Escambia County whose unpaid legal fines and fees could bar them from voting.

In 2018, more than 5 million Florida voters supported an amendment to automatically restore felony offenders' voting rights once they complete the terms of their sentences, probation and parole.

However, some critics say Florida legislators circumvented the will of voters and created a modern-day "poll tax" by passing a bill that required that ex-offenders pay all court-mandated fines, fees, costs and restitution before they can register or vote. The bill, Senate Bill 7066, was signed into law by the governor in June 2019 and is currently facing legal challenges from individuals and organizations all across the state.

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Daniel Smith, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida, was hired by a plaintiff in Hillsborough County to gauge how many folks would be barred from voting because of legal financial obligations.

Smith dedicated a portion of his report specifically to Escambia County, in part because the county clerk of court was one of the last in the state to respond to a public record request about offender data, and in part because Escambia County was one of only two counties to disclose if ex-offenders were represented by a public defender.

Smith — using data from the county clerk, the Florida Department of Corrections, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and other institutions — calculated 18,141 people in Escambia County have completed the conditions of their felony conviction.

Of those, 10,753 still have some sort of legal financial obligation (LFO) to the court.

Looking at demographics, about 66% of blacks (5,367 of 8,109) have an outstanding financial balance with the court. By comparison, about 53% of whites (5,053 of 9,464) had a lingering balance.

Across all populations, most people with legal financial obligations (about 4,500) owed in the neighborhood of $1,000. About 1,700 folks owed $250 or less, while there were 26 individuals who owed more than $10,000.

"Many of these individuals, who would be eligible to vote but for their outstanding LFOs, are unlikely to be able to pay their LFOs," Smith wrote.

Smith noted that SB 7066 was especially punitive against the poor, and that based on data from Escambia and Lake counties, more than seven in 10 of the individuals released from felony incarceration were represented by the Public Defender's Office, a proxy for indigency.

Smith wrote that statewide, some 1,000,809 individuals have been released from state or county incarceration, and 774,490 are ineligible to vote because of legal financial obligations.

The report was submitted to a federal court Tuesday in the case of a Hillsborough County man who says he cannot work because of a disability. He says after a felony conviction, he was assessed more than $52,000 in court fines and costs that he will never be able to pay.

He argues the state's voting rights restoration bill is unconstitutional because it predicates the right to vote on the ability to pay and disproportionately prevents minority groups from being able to elect representatives of their choice.

"The Petitioner asserts that while the statute, on its face, is race neutral, it has a

disproportionate impact on blacks and a material and motivating factor in adopting the

statute was to reduce and limit the number of black persons who would otherwise be

eligible to have their voting rights restored," his complaint said.

Currently, the state is in a holding pattern on ex-offender voting as courts determine the legality of SB 7066.

Kevin Robinson can be reached at krobinson4@pnj.com or 850-435-8527.