One man’s mission to restore felony voting rights in Florida

(TALLAHASSEE, FL) — Desmond Meade was recalling to a church congregation in Apopka, Florida, earlier this month a dark time in his life. “Not too long ago, I was standing in front of the railroad tracks, waiting for a train to come so I could jump in front of it,” he said.

That was in 2005, and Meade was addicted to crack-cocaine, homeless, jobless and recently released from prison after he was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon. Or, as he refers to his status during that time: a “returning citizen.”

The train Meade was going to jump in front of to take his own life never came. He saw it as a sign, crossed the railroad tracks and entered into rehab, later moving into a homeless shelter, earning associate degrees, a bachelor’s, and eventually a law degree from Florida International University.

Now he is the founder of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), an organization that fights for the voting rights of people released from prison and has successfully restored voting rights for more than 1.4 million Floridians through Amendment 4, a 2018 ballot initiative that gives people voting rights if they complete their sentences from felony convictions.

“We don’t use that ‘F’ word because there is a person’s mother, father, sister, brother that lives behind that scarlet letter of shame,” Meade told ABC News during a recent interview at the FRRC offices in Orlando, Florida.

“When you talk about a person who has been impacted by the criminal justice system, they’re not throwaways,” Meade said. “Rather than, when you look at me, see what’s wrong with this country, man, no, you can look at me and see what’s possible with this country. Man, that we are a nation of second chances; that we are a nation of overcoming against all odds.”

Meade travels around the state to different communities in an FRRC bus, implementing programs for people who finished their sentences to expunge their records, register them to vote, find legal services and pay for court fees. His work earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination in 2023, a place on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2019 and a fellowship for the MacArthur Foundation’s class of 2021.

“The quicker we help a person reintegrate, the least likely they are to re-offend, and everybody benefits from that,” Meade said.

A year after Florida ratified Amendment 4, the state legislature passed Senate Bill 7066, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law, requiring that even after serving their time, those leaving the system need to pay all of the related costs ordered by the court before being eligible to vote. People convicted of murder or felony sexual assault are an exception and are not allowed to vote.

Over the last eight years, Florida has had the largest number of people, out of any state in the country, who have come out of prison and are unable to vote — often because they cannot afford to pay the court-ordered monetary sanctions, according to The Sentencing Project.

In 2022, DeSantis established a new election crime and security unit and announced the arrest of 20 individuals who allegedly had voted after being convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense.

“The state of Florida has charged and is in the process of arresting 20 individuals across the state for voter fraud,” DeSantis announced at a press conference in August 2022.

Neither Gov. DeSantis nor Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd immediately responded to ABC News’ request for a statement.

“At the end of the day, my sons do not stop being my sons,” Meade said about his children when they disappoint him. “And I don’t think that any person should stop being an American citizen just because of a mistake they made, especially when that mistake is like 10, 15, 20 years ago. That doesn’t make sense.”

FRRC’s work is a family affair for Meade, his wife Sheena Meade and their five children, who canvass communities, door-knock and man a phone bank to spread voter education and register people to vote.

The FRRC has raised about $30 million to pay court fees for approximately 44,000 people in Florida who finished their prison sentences. But Meade said it’s not about who people vote for. Rather, he just wants them to get involved in the political process.

“If you’re fighting only for voting rights of people who you think might vote like you, you’re not engaging in democracy work, you’re engaging in partisan work,” Meade said. “Our democracy needs less partisanship and more collective participation.”

Neil Volz, deputy director for the FRRC, was convicted of felony corruption and fraud conspiracy while he was working in Washington, D.C., with now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, according to the Department of Justice. Volz first met Meade at an FRRC event in Florida.

“I’ll never forget the words he said. He said nobody’s got a monopoly on the pain caused by felony disenfranchisement,” Volz told ABC News during an interview in Apopka, Florida. “The vision that he was casting was much bigger than race, was much bigger than politics, was much bigger than economics.”

Meade said that restrictive voting laws for people who have come out of prison in Florida stem from archaic Jim Crow-era legislation passed when voter suppression of African Americans surged during Segregation. Back then, voting obstacles included poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation tactics – sometimes from law enforcement. But the FRRC founder said that he owes it to those who came before him to uphold the rights for which they fought.

“They did that not for them. They did it for me. And if I don’t vote, then what I’ve said is that they died in vain,” Meade said. “That I was not worth the sacrifice that they made. And I know I am.”

Henry Walker, who was released from prison after serving three years for illegal possession of a firearm, will be voting for the first time ever in the 2024 election because of help from the FRRC.

“FRRC helped to give the opportunities. That’s all it takes is the opportunity to tell my story so that someone like me, a returning citizen, can see it,” Walker told ABC News during an interview in Orlando, Florida. “And tell themselves: ‘If he can do it, I can do it.’”

Barbara Haynes, a woman who finished her prison sentence and fought for 20 years to get her voting rights, was finally able to register to vote with the help of Amendment 4 and the FRRC, according to Meade. At that point, she had less than 6 months to live because of a terminal illness.

“Her dying wish was so basic; she just wanted to feel what it felt like to be a part of something bigger,” Meade said. “To be a part of this democracy.”

Haynes died weeks after registering to vote and before she could cast her ballot, according to the FRRC founder.

“And that just ripped my heart in pieces,” Meade said. “She didn’t get that opportunity. How many people didn’t get that opportunity?”

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

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