Florida citizens with felony conviction lost their right to vote forever. No appeal. No exceptions. Florida voters overwhelmingly passed an initiative allowing citizens to regain voting rights after release from prison. It passed the same year DeSantis barely won the governorship. He immediately set out to overturn it by attaching requirements that all fines, fees, court costs, restitution be paid. With interest and penalties, a small fine can mushroom into tens of thousands of dollars. There was no data base where a person could find out what they owe or if they were eligible to register to vote. Civil liberties groups filed suit, claiming it was in effect a poll tax, but lost.
Due to racial disparities in criminal justice, the law fell especially hard on Black citizens; 20% of Florida's Black population is ineligible to vote due to past convictions.
DeSantis demanded money for a special election police force accountable only to him personally but no money for people to learn how they can become eligible to vote again. So people relied on state voter registrars.
DeSantis, in front of his hand picked election cops, announced with great fanfare the arrest of 20 people who had "illegally" registered to vote. They face five years in prison.
The wife of one of them talked about how proud her husband had been to vote for the first time in his life. He genuinely thought he was eligible to register.
Republican Jesus. Afflict the afflicted, trample on the downtrodden. And the Republicans will praise you. And as long as you hate gays, you can talk about what a fine Christian you are.
This is what he wants for the country.
Just another fascist bully with better grammar than Trump.