About 1.2 million convicted felons in Florida will automatically have their right to vote restored, thanks to a ballot measure that received about65 percent of the vote Tuesday.
At least 60 percent of voters had to approve for Amendment 4 to become law.
For the past seven years, felons have had to wait five years after completing their sentence to even apply to have their voting rights restored.
The movement to reform the state’s notoriously strict restoration process was championed by the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, a bipartisan group led by convicted felons. The group collected more than 800,000 signatures to qualify Amendment 4 for the 2018 ballot.
Make no mistake: this is one of the biggest stories of the night.