The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld its own decision Tuesday to allow Florida ex-convicts to vote despite lingering financial and legal obligations. The court refused to reconsider en banc its original decision, effectively cementing its earlier decision on the case.

In February, the court issued its original opinion on this case concerning ex-felon enfranchisement. The case involved an amendment that restored voting rights to ex-felons in Florida approved by a 2018 referendum. Shortly after, the Florida legislature passed legislation to limit this restoration to only felons who have paid all of their legal fees and fines.

The court ruled against this legislation stating that Florida voters likely did not intend such a restriction. The court remarked:

On this preliminary record, that is all the State has done. It simply argues that the purpose of Amendment 4 was not merely to re-enfranchise felons but to re-enfranchise felons who have “paid their debt to society,” and that the latter qualification was a critical prerequisite to the Amendment’s passing. This strikes us as a plausible characterization of the evidence in the record as far as it goes, but again, the State’s assertion in this regard is speculative. It is altogether unclear whether the people of Florida would have voted differently if they knew that the Amendment they adopted could not be constitutionally applied to those felons who were genuinely unable to pay despite their good faith efforts to do so.

Florida’s governor and secretary of state have yet to respond to the court’s refusal to rehear the case.