[Salon] Trump is a convicted felon. How was he able to vote in Florida recently?

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

• Trump is a convicted felon. How was he able to vote in Florida recently?

That’s right: A New York jury in 2024 found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to an adult-film actress ahead of the 2016 election. It made Trump the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime; eventually, it made him the first felon to serve as U.S. president and also the first president to be sentenced for a crime. He faced no prison time, but Trump is a convicted felon.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that purports to change rules for mail ballots. (Alex Brandon/AP)

Which brings us to election law. State laws generally determine how Americans vote, even in federal elections. Some states have moved to expand voting rights over the past decade. Still, millions of Americans were ineligible to vote in 2024 because of felony convictions, according to the Sentencing Project. 

Trump, 79, was born in New York City and spent most of his life there. But in 2019, while living in the White House, he changed his voter registration to Florida, claiming his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach as his permanent residence. He has continued to legally vote there, post-conviction, because he got a lenient sentence in New York: 

• In Florida, a felony conviction for murder or a sexual offense strips a person’s right to vote. For other convictions, they must complete their sentence before being eligible to vote.
• A felony conviction in another state renders a person ineligible to vote in Florida only if the conviction also would have the same effect in the state where the person was convicted. 
• In New York — where Trump was convicted — if a felon is not incarcerated, they can register to vote. 

So, since Trump was convicted in New York but given no prison sentence, he did not lose his right to vote there — or in Florida.

What else to know

• Trump calls it “mail-in cheating.” That’s also how he voted in Florida. 
• Trump issues order attempting to change rules for mail-in voting
• What Trump’s unconditional discharge sentence means