Byron Smith registered to vote after a key amendment, but didn’t know he was ineligible – now he faces up to five years in prison

Byron Smith was standing outside his house when the Tampa police officer put the handcuffs around his wrists. “What’s this about?” Smith asked, flustered, standing in the early afternoon Florida summer heat.

Minutes later he was sitting in the back of a police cruiser, still trying to figure out why he was being placed under arrest, body camera footage obtained by the Guardian shows. “Did you vote?” the officer asked him. “Not this time, no,” Smith, 65, replied. “They took that right away from me.” The officer then told him a $1,000 bond had been set for him. “What’s the charge?” Smith asked. “It was for something about false voting and something else,” the officer said.