The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), an Orlando-based advocacy group that strived to restore voting rights for over a million nonviolent felons in Florida, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the Orlando Sentinel has reported.
In 2018, the coalition had successfully run a campaign called Amendment 4 to help an estimated 1.4 million nonviolent felons in Florida achieve voting rights.
Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis had signed a bill prohibiting the formerly incarcerated from casting votes before all of their court-related debts are paid. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the Coalition raised $30 million to help 40,000 people across Florida pay off their debts and regain their eligibility to vote.
The FRRC was nominated by the American Friends Service Committee “for their work in building democracy, supporting the human right to representation by government, and working towards a better organized and peaceful world.” They were also nominated by the Quaker Peace and Social Witness, who successfully nominated Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Peace Prize in 1964.
FRRC has previously won the MacArthur Fellowship “genius” grant and its Executive Director who is the face of the advocacy group has been featured in Time Magazine’s Time 100. Reacting to the nomination, Meade said, “The Nobel Peace Prize is the highest recognition that any individual organization could receive in the world.”
