In the early morning hours of September 29th, Tallahassee Police officers came to 69-year-old Marsha Ervin’s house with an arrest warrant. That’s the day her attorney and Tallahassee’s NAACP PresidentMutaqee Akbar, said Ervin was hit with some shocking news.
Ervin, who received a felony conviction, voted in 2020 and 2022. She thought her right to vote had been restored under Amendment 4even though she was still on probation.
“She was reliving a nightmare that she had lived five years ago because she voted," Akbar stated at Tuesday's press conference at the Leon County courthouse.
Under the state constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2018, felons can have their voting rights automatically restored, but only once they have completed their entire sentence—that includes probation and paying costs like court fines and fees.
Akbar argues the whole incident was a misunderstanding.
“She thought she had the right like many people when she was released, that she thought she had the right to vote still."
Leon County Commissioner Bill Proctor joined Crump and Akbar at the podium to call for Ervin’s charges to be dropped. Proctor told attendees that the election supervisor’s office issued her a voter identification card, so if Ervin is punished, he thinks the government should be too.
“You got to prosecute everybody," said Proctor. "I’m asking the state, if this lady committed fraud, then everybody who helped her and was involved in the process. Don’t just blame the victim.”
Who's responsible for determining a person’s eligibility?
When Ervin registered to vote, she checked a box that said, “I affirm I’m not a convicted felon, or if I am, my right to vote has been restored.” But even some election officers argue that language can be confusing.
“If you are convicted of a felony, you’ve completed all your sentencing, which to most people means you’re out of prison; and then maybe your rights are restored," Leon County Election Supervisor Mark Early explained. "Well, there [voting rights] aren’t always. It’s very likely they haven’t been restored yet.”
Officials say it’s not the responsibility of the election supervisors to determine a person’s eligibility. It is up to the person voting. That’s something Tallahassee NAACP’s past president, Adner Marcelin, wants to change.
“Ms. Ervin is just one individual who was potentially impacted by this rule that can potentially prevent others from unintentionally voting and then being prosecuted with felonies," Marcelin stated at a recent voter registration workshop. "They [former felons] did not have the intent to vote, they just had misunderstanding.”
Proposed changes to voter registration
Voting rights activists also want the Department of State to change the voter registration application to make it clear who is and isn’t eligible to vote. The form has been changed in the past, and has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, but the current version is the same as the form used in 2013 before the voting restoration amendment, known as Amendment 4, was passed.
Eliza Sweren-Becker is the Senior Counsel for the voting rights group, Brennan Center for Justice. She told WFSU in a recent interview that Florida officials have yet to change the current registration application so that it explains each eligibility requirement, which can lead to more confusion.
“There are different rules at play for people of past felony convictions," said Sweren-Becker. "In the intervening year, we’ve seen that there is confusion and so the form ought to be updated and improved to make sure that people with past felony convictions know the rules of the road when they are filling out the voter registration application.”
Last year, more than a dozen former felons were arrestedon potential voting fraud charges in Florida. However, many of those cases were tossed out. For some that was because the statewide prosecutor did not have the authority to prosecute.
Senate Bill 4-B, a new law Governor Ron DeSantis signed earlier this year, expands the jurisdiction of the statewide prosecutor and could make it harder for people like Ervin to get their cases dropped in the future. That law took effect in February of this year.
Ervin, a longtime Tallahassee resident, currently faces three third degree felony charges.