desmond meade
September 14, 2022 -
As deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, Volz was a leader in the fight to pass Amendment 4, which returned the right to vote to over a million Floridians with past felony convictions. He talked with Facing South about Florida's ongoing attacks on returning citizens, mobilization for the midterm elections, and the future of the movement to end felony disenfranchisement.
September 24, 2020 -
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a Florida law requiring people with felony convictions to pay off all court fines and fees before they can cast ballots again, so voting rights advocates are redoubling efforts to raise funds to help the indigent.
September 9, 2020 -
As states across the country gear up for the November elections, millions of formerly incarcerated people could be blocked from voting because of laws requiring them to first pay all court fines and fees. But voting rights advocates are challenging those laws — and they recently racked up a big win in North Carolina.
July 9, 2020 -
States across the country require people with felony convictions to purchase their voting rights back if they ever want to cast a ballot again. It is a mechanism that felony disenfranchisement schemes increasingly rely upon, and it marks a return to the sordid tactics of Jim Crow.
May 24, 2019 -
As the movement for criminal justice reform takes center stage ahead of the 2020 elections, governors and legislators in the South are offering reforms to create a more welcoming reentry process after prison and to restore rights stripped from ex-felons — though progress on that front faces backlash in Florida.
January 11, 2019 -
In Florida, where a new constitutional amendment has restored voting rights to most ex-felons, organizers are planning a voter registration and engagement campaign to reach those with — and without — criminal convictions. Meanwhile, a lawsuit aims to expand voting rights to people with felony records in Kentucky.
July 14, 2017 -
A ballot initiative campaign in Florida and a lawsuit against Louisiana seek to restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies after they're released from prison. The efforts are parts of a broader movement to overturn felony disenfranchisement laws rooted in white-supremacist politics.
