ACLU raises race, cost of voting in federal court challenge of law signed Friday by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Emory “Marq” Mitchell’s desire to vote for the first time in the 2020 presidential election morphed into disillusionment Friday when he learned how much it would cost him:

$2,143.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Friday a requirement that felons pay outstanding court fines and restitution before they can register to vote, curtailing a November ballot measure that sought to immediately restore voting rights to more than 1 million Floridians.

Within hours of DeSantis’ Friday evening bill-signing, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern Florida challenging the new law’s constitutionality.

The suit decries the measure as a modern-day “poll tax,” a fee once imposed on would-be voters historically aimed at suppressing black votes.

“Preventing someone from exercising their fundamental right to participate in democracy because of the size of their bank account is not who we are as a people,” said Daniel Tilly, legal director at ACLU Florida. “Not everyone has the means frankly to pay off even a debt of $1,000.”

The requirement, the lawsuit claims, purposefully targets black voters who are disproportionately represented in Florida’s prison system.

Mitchell, 29, who founded Broward County nonprofit Chainless Change to aid felons in re-entry, is one of 10 felon plaintiffs in the lawsuit whose debts range from $800 to, in one case, $59 million.

“This reminds of being in the system and feeling helpless all over again,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell served two months in Miami-Dade County Jail in 2011 for battery on a law enforcement officer, stemming from a fight with a campus security guard while he studied at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens.

Florida voters approved Amendment 4 in November, restoring voting rights as of Jan. 8 to all felons, exclusing those convicted of murder or sex crimes, once they completed their sentences.

Mitchell registered to vote for the first time in March and got his voting card in the mail.

Only after Mitchell registered to vote in Broward County did he get a letter from the Miami-Dade clerk telling him he still owed court fees and raising the prospect that he would be removed from the voter rolls.

“Once you have a criminal record, you’re making minimum wage,” said Mitchell, who works part-time at an event planning company and earns no salary from his nonprofit. “It’s not about not wanting to pay those fees. It’s about the inability to pay them.”

The debt facing another plaintiff, Karen Leicht of Miami, is unusual for two reasons. It’s huge: at $59 million. And it’s not hers alone. She shares the unpaid restitution with 10 co-defendants.

Though she makes payments regularly, the lawsuit reads, her ability to vote hinges on her co-conspirators also paying their dues.

In Palm Beach County alone, felons owed a combined $201.6 million in outstanding court fines and fees as of May 20, figures from the clerk show. The fees are associated with 135,148 cases, meaning each case on average incurs about $1,500 in fees.

That excludes unpaid restitution, which the courts don’t track.

While the ACLU challenges the payment requirement, Amendment 4 backers acknowledged in March 2017 to the Florida Supreme Court that they anticipated felons would be required to pay fines and restitution.

DeSantis, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, and Florida lawmakers who backed the bill said they had no political motivations in crafting the restrictions.

But critics say the Republican-led Legislature aimed to restrict the number of potential new voters in a battleground state known for tight races. Studies have found that more felons tend to vote Democratic.

DeSantis, a Republican, won the 2018 gubernatorial race by less than 1 percent — about 32,000 votes.

“This is a restructuring of Jim Crow laws,” Mitchell said, referring to Reconstruction-era laws that segregated public places in Southern states. “It’s clear who lawmakers consider qualified to have a voice. This is a direct attempt to suppress the voice of the minority community.”

Darryl Paulson, a retired University of South Florida professor who studied voting rights, said the lawsuit likely will draw on past federal court cases that struck down the poll tax before the 24th Amendment declared it unconstitutional.

“This (new law) does essentially the same thing: imposes a cost as a barrier to voting,” Paulson said. “This is going to call upon Florida’s pattern and practices of discrimination in voting.”

Florida stripped felons of the right to vote in its first post-Civil War Constitution. The provision survived several rewrites and court challenges.

Before Amendment 4 passed with 65 percent support, only the governor and the Florida Cabinet had the power to restore voting rights to felons.

Under Gov. Rick Scott, the granting of clemency slowed to a trickle. He restored rights to 412 felons per year on average while his predecessor, Charlie Crist, reached 38,808 per year, The Palm Beach Post found in an October investigation.

And the system often was criticized as arbitrary and discriminatory.

The Post analysis of voting restorations under Florida governors dating to 1970 found that Scott restored the voting rights of twice as many whites as blacks and three times as many white men as black men.

The previous system also was challenged in court for being discriminatory in a 2000 lawsuit.

A three-judge appellate panel, in dismissing the lawsuit, acknowledged that the system was rooted in historic “racial animus,” but said the plaintiffs failed to prove that the state intended to discriminate against certain voters.

“It’s the luck of the draw with whichever court hears this case,” Paulson said. “But when you put the pieces together of historic racial discrimination in the state and now the financial burden this places on certain voters, it’s hard to explain this away.”

lramadan@pbpost.com

@luluramadan