Rivers was among 41 formerly incarcerated people who were arrested in
2022 and 2023 for voter fraud in Florida.
Florida sets up formerly incarcerated people to vote, then arrests
them
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Rhonda Sonnenberg Read the full piece here
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Friend,
In a country where wealth and friends in high places can go a long way
in making legal problems disappear, John Boyd Rivers has neither of
those advantages.
He and his wife barely scrape by in Alachua County, Florida, raising
eight children on his unreliable income as a mason.
On May 16, Rivers, 45, stood before a Gainesville court and explained
why he thought he had the right to vote in the 2020 presidential
election after a representative of the county elections office helped
him register and he received a Florida voter ID card.
"I informed him that I was in [the Alachua County jail] on a
violation of probation and he [elections official] told me that as
long as I didn't have a sex crime or murder charge, I would be
eligible to get my rights restored," Rivers told the jury.
He was among 41 formerly incarcerated people, also known as returning
citizens, who were arrested in 2022 and 2023 for voter fraud in
Florida following the 2020 election. Nearly half took plea deals,
fearful of facing the unknown of a jury trial and guilty verdict. To
date, only Rivers and one other have been tried in court. He drew a
split verdict: not guilty of knowingly registering to vote while
ineligible but guilty of willful, fraudulent voting.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and conservative lawmakers have launched continued
attacks on voting rights that have made the state's historically
inequitable criminal justice and voting rights systems worse. Since
DeSantis' election in 2018, the Florida Legislature has passed
the most sweeping voter suppression laws of any state. DeSantis has
proposed
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additional voter suppression measures for 2024 and continues to ramp
up spending for his Office of Election Crimes and Security -
from $1.2 million in 2022-2023 to $2.2 million
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in 2023-2024. And he's added $1 million in new spending for the
establishment of a Statewide Voter Fraud and Assistance Hotline.
"Instead of fulfilling its role to enable Floridians to vote,
the state has made it more difficult, which is anti-democratic,"
said Courtney O'Donnell, a senior staff attorney for voting
rights with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Read More
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