Voting-rights group says it faces threats from white supremacists

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition has hired security to counter threats from people who believe the group is against President Donald Trump.

Florida Republicans’ request last month for police and the FBI to investigate a program to pay off felons’ court fees and fines hasn’t amounted to criminal charges or a formal probe.

But it has created a “chilling effect” and sparked threats from white supremacists, according to Desmond Meade, executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which has raised tens of millions of dollars to pay off court fees and fines for felons during the past 18 months.

Meade said Friday that he has hired lawyers and security experts to combat threats from people who believe he and his organization are working to undermine President Donald Trump’s reelection.

“White-supremacist groups were encouraging people to go to our website and do nefarious things and trying to sabotage the site,” Meade said.

He’s now trying to remind everyone that his organization is nonpartisan. In 2018, Meade and his group led the effort to overturn the state’s 150year-old ban on felon voting and were successful because of support from Republicans and Democrats. He has largely stayed out of the litigation over a law that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last year requiring felons to pay off all court fees, fines and restitution to victims before being allowed to vote.

“We’ve never had this issue before,” Meade said. “We’re fighting just as hard for that person who wishes they could have voted for Donald Trump as the person who wishes they could have voted for Barack Obama.”

The group faced mounting pressure after last month’s release of a memo that came from former New York City Mayor

Mike Bloomberg and encouraged donors to contribute $16 million to Meade’s organization to help felons pay off their fines and fees.

The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, claimed to have identified nearly 32,000 Black and Latino felons who have registered to vote but who owed court debts, making them ineligible to cast ballots on Nov. 3. The billionaire Democrat has pledged to spend $100 million in Florida to support former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, and his memo said paying off fines and fees would help that effort.

The announcement captured national headlines and the attention of DeSantis, who asked Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, to look into it. A month ago, Moody then requested investigations by the FBI’s Tampa field office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Citing state statutes and federal laws, she implied Bloomberg could be offering illegal incentives for felons to vote. The state’s Republican chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, pushed for an investigation.

As of this week, however, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said the case is still a “preliminary inquiry” and has not elevated it to a full investigation.

A spokeswoman for the FBI’s Tampa office said it does not confirm or deny investigations, but added, “As a general matter, allegations of criminal conduct are reviewed by the FBI for their merit, but such a review does not necessarily result in the opening of a full investigation.”

Lawyers whom Meade hired to respond to Moody’s request said they haven’t heard from the

FBI and don’t expect to.

Attorneys Fritz Scheller and Andrew Searle, a former federal prosecutor, wrote to the FBI and state police two days after Moody’s letter, calling it “lamentable” and “absurd.” They explained how Meade’s actions were well within the law.

“The request has already had a chilling effect (which was perhaps the intent), forcing (the coalition) to divert time and resources, and serving as a distraction from (the coalition’s) laudable effort to restore the voting rights of all Florida residents plagued by felony convictions,” the letter states.

Moody’s spokeswoman,

Lauren Cassedy, said in a statement that the attorney general refers all sorts of cases to state police and the FBI, including threatening emails sent to some Floridians this week.

“White supremacy and racism are unacceptable,” Cassedy wrote. “Threats of violence should be immediately reported to law enforcement.”

Meade said Moody’s announcement was picked up on far-right websites and discussed on forums on the dark web. A coalition employee found chatter that white supremacists, believing the group was trying to hurt Trump’s reelection, wanted to cripple the coalition’s website.

Meade said they found discussions where white supremacists, despite their objections to the program, told others that if they owe fines and fees in Florida, they might as well take Bloomberg’s money, using a racist term to refer to the former mayor.

Meade said he has hired professionals to assess the threats but has not yet referred the case to police.

So far, the Rights Restoration Coalition has paid off $27 million in fines and fees for 40,000 felons across Florida. A spokeswoman for Bloomberg said he worked with Meade’s organization to contact new and previous donors and raise just over $16 million, as promised.

Meade said Bloomberg’s money did not go to anyone based on their ethnicity or partisan preference.

“It could be that we’ve paid fines and fees to a white supremacist,”

Meade joked.