Florida Supreme Court scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday Hubbard vs. Floridaa lawsuit challenging the legality of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ indictment for alleged voting fraud. Terry Hubbard was one of 20 people charged by prosecutors across the state in 2022 as part of Florida’s campaign against people with past felony convictions who voted incorrectly due to confusion over eligibility. The Florida Supreme Court will consider whether prosecutors across the state had the authority to bring charges against him.
The state’s ruling would allow future governors to weaponize prosecutions for political purposes, a tactic now being used in unprecedented ways at the federal level.
There are two types of prosecutors in Florida. One is the local state attorney, who is elected by voters and can only prosecute crimes within their jurisdiction, and the other is the statewide attorney, who is supervised by the attorney general and can only prosecute crimes that occur in multiple regions of the state or affect the state.
The circumstances surrounding Mr. Hubbard’s prosecution suggest that the state’s actions are intended to intimidate voters. DeSantis announced the arrest of Hubbard and 19 others during a press conference days before Florida’s 2022 primary election. Surrounded by law enforcement officers, he called the arrests the “opening salvo” for Florida’s new “election police.” He also announced that the statewide prosecutor’s office would handle the cases because local state attorneys were “reluctant” to prosecute those arrested, claiming they knowingly voted when they were ineligible.
But all those arrested shared a series of troubling circumstances. Publicly available evidence suggests that most, if not all, were confused or misinformed about their voting eligibility, and all lived in counties with local elected state attorneys who were Democrats.
This confusion was caused by the state itself.
In 2018, Florida voters approved a state constitutional amendment that automatically restores voting rights to most people convicted of felonies after completing a sentence that includes probation or parole. Amendment 4 was supposed to reenfranchise 1.4 million Floridians who had previously been disenfranchised for life.
But in June 2019, Congress and DeSantis enacted legislation purporting to “implement” the amendment. The law, Senate Bill 7066, imposed new barriers to restoring voting rights. Most importantly, it added a requirement that certain fees and court costs associated with a conviction be paid before voting rights can be regained. Many people don’t know what they owe, but hundreds of thousands of people can’t afford to pay off their debts in court.
Since the law was enacted, Florida has struggled to determine eligibility in a timely manner. There is no central database that reliably confirms whether individuals owe money to the courts, and the state has done nothing to meaningfully educate the public about the requirements of Amendment 4 and SB 7066. These failures have led to widespread confusion over who is eligible to vote after a felony conviction.
In Florida, it is against the law to register to vote or vote while ineligible only if the voter knows that he or she is ineligible. In light of the confusion surrounding voter eligibility, some local state attorneys have declined to prosecute individuals who were confused or misled about their voting rights status, citing a lack of intent to violate the law.
So DeSantis asked the statewide prosecutor’s office to take the case, even though its history and purpose has been to focus on complex criminal cases. The office was established in 1987 to combat organized crime that originates in or impacts two or more of Florida’s 20 judicial courts. Because voters register and vote in the circuit in which they live, a state court judge dismissed the department’s charges against Mr. Hubbard. Judges in similar cases reached similar conclusions, leading Congress to enact Senate Bill 4-B in 2023. The law aims to give the agency the power to prosecute all voting crimes, even those that occur or affect only one circuit, like the crimes Hubbard is accused of committing.
Florida’s intermediate appellate courts have since split on whether the agency should pursue such a prosecution. In Mr. Hubbard’s case, the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled that SB 4-B applied retroactively and authorized prosecution. The Florida Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether the department can prosecute him or others charged with similar crimes.
The weaponization of Florida’s statewide prosecutor’s office provides an alarming preview of what will happen at the federal level. President Trump has been on a tit-for-tat trip since returning to office. The Justice Department has opened criminal investigations or brought criminal charges against a growing number of the president’s political opponents. Some of these efforts, such as those involving former FBI Director James Comey and former New York State Attorney General Letitia James, have faced resistance from career prosecutors, leading the president to appoint several former personal attorneys as interim U.S. attorneys, even though they have no experience as prosecutors. A federal judge dismissed the charges against Comey and James.
There is reason to believe that the Justice Department will soon be deployed along with Florida’s statewide prosecutor’s office to undermine federal elections. President Trump has repeatedly called for investigations and prosecutions of election officials who administered the 2020 election. Last summer, the Justice Department began requesting complete copies of statewide voter files, ballots from previous elections, and access to voting equipment. Shortly after, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department was actively considering ways to bring criminal charges against election officials over how they administered the election system. New federal task forces, including the Justice Department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Office, which would have direct White House oversight, are also expected to provide new infrastructure for politicized investigations and prosecutions that could be used to interfere with federal elections.
The federal government and states can and should prosecute genuine election fraud. However, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Florida or federal elections. Instead, Florida prosecutors appear to have tried to influence who voted. In fact, the statewide prosecution’s charges have done just that. It discouraged voters in the state and elsewhere from voting. in hubbardthe Florida Supreme Court should reject the state’s efforts to weaponize law enforcement for political purposes.
Patrick Berry is a consultant in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, focusing on rights restoration and other issues related to voting and elections.
Recommended quote: Patrick Berry Florida High Court to hear arguments in politicized ‘voter fraud’ caseSᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (February 3, 2026), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/florida-high-court-hear-arguments-politicized-voter-fraud-case
