Floridians restored the voting rights of felons who had completed their sentences — except those convicted of murder or sex offenses — in a referendum last November that passed with the backing of nearly 65 percent of voters. The Legislature sought to blunt the effect of the vote by passing a law that included any court-imposed financial obligations linked to a felony in the definition of “sentence.”

The legislators went even further by specifying that those obligations included fines and other costs that had been converted to civil liens, a common court practice applied to costs that felons are unable to pay. Civil liens cancel the criminal nature of the obligations, converting them to ordinary debts like loans or credit card purchases.

By requiring people with felony convictions to pay legal obligations before registering to vote, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs had argued, Florida legislators had effectively created a modern version of the notorious poll taxes used to disenfranchise African-Americans during the Jim Crow era. The United States Constitution’s 24th Amendment did away with the practice, stating that the right to vote in a federal election could not be denied for failure to pay “any poll tax or other tax.”

In his ruling, Judge Hinkle, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, left open the question of whether the repayment provisions were in fact a poll tax.

He noted that the drafters of the constitutional amendment approved in November had indicated to the state Supreme Court that fines and other court costs were indeed considered part of a sentence, but he said that it was up to Florida courts to decide whether the amendment approved by voters required their repayment.

In any case, the judge said, it was clear that states have the right to deny voting privileges to people who can afford to pay such costs but choose not to.

But Judge Hinkle said the law was equally clear that Florida cannot refuse to restore a former felon’s voting rights simply because the felon is unable to pay legal debts. In fact, he wrote, a 2005 ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit involving a Florida felon who was unable to pay restitution stated that “access to the franchise cannot be made to depend on an individual’s financial resources.”