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Voter fraud charges against former school Asbury Park Board of Education member Felicia Simmons has been dismissed, Union County Prosecutor’s Office Spokesman Mark Spivey confirmed.

The charges were tied to a case dating back to 2015 against Elizabeth resident Melvin Howell for third-degree voter mail fraud, alleging Simmons falsely claimed to have helped an ineligible voter and Howell filled out applications for bogus voters.

“It’s a relief,” Simmon, 37, said in a telephone interview. “I feel anger and hurt but at this moment I feel relief and an ability to breathe.”

Simmons served on the Asbury Park Board of Education from 2013 to 2016, when she lost her bid for reelection. She spoke of the miscarriage of justice she felt and having ‘lost a lot’ during the duration of the investigation and charges.

“We need to do more,” she said. “There is supposed to be an assumption of innocence and there was not. I’m angry at the grand jury process and hurt for my son, who wore this when he went to school and all throughout this process. I feel there was a sort of recklessness to these charges.”

Simmons said she is currently working to put her life back together.

“I think that’s all we can do,” she said. “I’m coming out of a status of people assuming I was guilty and people pushing me aside and I refused to be pushed aside.”

Simmons said it was her 14-year-old son who persuaded her to remain steadfast in fighting the charges.

“He kept telling me I don’t want you to take a plea,” she said. “It was financially devastating for a single mom like me but for all that I took him through, I had to give him at least that.”

The single mother said she is currently between jobs, having worked briefly doing research and finding students for the newly opened College Achieve Greater Asbury Park Charter School.

“There were new friends that came out the woodwork and showed they were friends,” she said.

Among them was former BOE member Stephen Williams and Jennifer Sirois, a Ret. Army Lieutenant Colonel who works as a private investigator.

“She immediately came to take me out to dinner,” Simmons said. “I worked for a lot of people and a lot of people got amnesia but people like Jennifer did not.”

Simmons aso spoke of her mother’s dedication, rising at 5 a.m. to catch a training in order to attend court.

“There were other family members and friends who gave encouraging words,” she said. “I know this was supposed to change me and take me out of the world but it hasn’t deterred me. My calling is to stay, to make sure my community is better for it. I lost a job at the Mercy Center because of it. I got denied an apartment because of the charge. It was done in an election year to dissuade people; people I had that were engaged.

Simmons said she will now look to find consulting work and will remain doing the political work she finds so rewarding.

“I’m good at it,” she said. “In this community you have to stick to the fight. If anything it has made me want to fight harder.”

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