Sofia Benavides
(CNN) – Although it is difficult in Florida for people with felony convictions to regain their voting rights, former President Donald Trump will have no problem voting for himself today in Palm Beach.
Trump was convicted in Manhattan earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. First former US president to be convicted of a serious crime, Trump is expected to be sentenced on November 26.
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Under Florida law, if a voter has an out-of-state conviction, Florida will defer to that state’s laws on how a felon can regain his or her voting rights.
For Trump, that means he will benefit from a 2021 New York law that allows people with felony convictions to vote as long as they are not serving a prison sentence at the time of the election.
For other Floridians with felony convictions, the rules are not so simple.
A successful 2018 ballot initiative that restored voting rights to those who had completed the terms of their sentence was dismantled by the state’s Republican lawmakers. They passed a law requiring all fines and fees associated with a conviction to be paid, a process that can be cumbersome since there is no centralized system to track such outstanding fees.
