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Criminals who have served their sentences, including fines, probation and parole, will now be eligible to vote in that state. The new law does not apply to persons convicted of murder or sexual offenses.
"Over 60% of Florida voters have taken a stand for fairness and the right to vote, as well as to eliminate an ugly stain in our state's constitution since the Civil War era." "said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU, in a statement.
According to the non-profit sentencing project, about 1.5 million people in Florida who served their time without being able to vote were able to go to the polls.
This represents a quarter of the total number of people who are prohibited from voting because of a crime conviction.
"This victory is the culmination of decades of hard work," Simon said. "For too long, Florida has been extremely extreme.The ban on our state's lifetime voting was the most powerful tactic of repression of the country's voters, excluding more people from the polling booth and our democracy than any other law or policy. " in the countryside."
The trip to bring Amendment 4 to the vote was not short nor easy.
Floridians for a Fair Democracy, the organization behind this measure, said it had taken more than two years to put it to the vote. It took 766,200 petition signatures to be approved by the state in January.
"We are a nation with a second chance," group president Desmond Meade said at the time.
Meade, a criminal who later earned a law degree, had to wait three years for his voting rights to be restored. The Orlando resident was convicted of drugs and firearms in 2001.
National voting rights
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, what happens to a person convicted of a crime varies from state to state.
Florida was one of 13 states where criminals were subject to a lifetime ban, required the pardon of a governor, or had to wait for more time for their voting rights to be reinstated.
There, a person had to make a request for mercy from the governor, but could only do so after a period of waiting. In the end, it was up to the governor to decide.
Unlike Florida, criminals in many other states do not lose their rights or lose them only temporarily.
In Maine and Vermont, criminals never lose the right to vote.
In 14 other states and in Washington, DC, they lose their rights only while incarcerated.
In 22 other states, they lose their rights until they finish their sentence, such as parole.
Emanuella Grinberg Saeed Ahmed of CNN contributed to this report.
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