Meade is executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which works to restore voting rights in the state to former felons. Amendment 4 automatically restored voting rights to former felons, except those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who have completed their sentences. Initially, organizers projected that Amendment 4 would restore voting rights to about 1.4 million Floridians, but as a result of these new hurdles only a little over 600,000 have actually regained their voting rights, Meade said. Even after Amendment 4, felons are required to have completed their sentence before recovering their voting rights in Florida, as in virtually all other states. Intervening to restore those rights to Trump, if he’s convicted of a felony before the election, would represent a stark departure from the clemency board’s typical procedures.

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