He voted in Florida for the first time in 2020. Then came the criminal charges

John Boyd Rivers, a mason who once laid the bricks of the very courthouse in which he now stood trial, was recently found guilty of voter fraud after voting for the first time in the 2020 presidential election. Rivers registered to vote as a Republican while serving a prison sentence, received his voter registration card in the mail after he was released, cast his ballot that fall, but was then prosecuted by a new election security task force created by Florida Governor Ron Desantis. Rivers, along with several other Florida residents, have been indicted for failing to pay off all their fees and fines before casting their ballot; the requirement that former felons must pay all fees and fines was only recently passed by Republicans in Florida’s legislature in 2019 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020.

 
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