DENVER (AP) — Donald Trump may be convicted of a felony and lives in Florida, a state notorious for restricting the voting rights of people with felony convictions. But he can still vote as long as he stays out of jail in New York State.
That’s because Florida follows other states’ disenfranchisement rules for residents convicted of out-of-state crimes. In Trump’s case, New York’s law only eliminates voting rights for people convicted of crimes while they are in prison. Once they are released from prison, their rights are automatically restored even if they are on parole, under a 2021 law passed by the state’s Democratic Legislature.
“If a Floridian’s right to vote is restored in the state of conviction, they will be restored under Florida law,” Blair Bowie of the Campaign Legal Center wrote in a post, noting that people without Trump’s legal recourse often getting confused by Florida’s complex rules.
So as long as Trump isn’t sent to prison, he can vote for himself in Florida’s November election.
“His rights depend on his conviction,” Michael McDonald, a University of Florida political scientist who has tracked his state’s disenfranchisement rules, wrote on the social media site X, formerly Twitter.
Trump was convicted Thursday of falsifying company records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who claimed the two had sex.
A lifelong New Yorker, Trump settled in Florida in 2019 while in the White House.
Even if he is re-elected president, Trump will not be able to forgive himself for the state charges in New York. The president’s pardon power only applies to federal crimes.
The conviction, and even the prison sentence, would not deter Trump from continuing his quest for the White House. The Republican National Convention, which opens four days after his July 11 conviction in New York, adopted rules last year that do not include specific provisions if the presumptive nominee is convicted of a crime.
Delegates could change their rules before formalizing Trump’s nomination, but there is no evidence that a significant faction of the party would seek to replace the former president on the Republican ticket. Trump commands loyalty within the Republican base, and the Republican National Committee is led by his loyalists, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.
