In a historic move Florida restores voting rights to persons with felony

Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions once they complete their sentences.

Florida voting rights persons with conviction

This historic move expands the voting rights to

• About 1.4 million people
• reverses a state policy rooted in the Jim Crow South.

Florida is one of four states that permanently prevents people with felonies from voting. This even if they’ve completed their sentence, probation and parole.

Disenfranchised by the policy

The policy severely disenfranchised 1.4 million people in the state.:

• represent an estimated 10 percent of Florida’s voting population
• a quarter of the total disenfranchised population in the United States, reports the Huff Post.

Lawmakers enforced a policy that severely disenfranchised 1.4 million people in the state.

The only way people can get the right to vote back is if the governor decides to grant it to them through a process that takes years.

People convicted of murder and sexual offenses are bared from the amendment and won’t have their rights automatically restored.