Around five million people in the United States are unable to register to vote due to a prior felony record. Felony disenfranchisement has been used to cull the electorate since its introduction, though initially, it was a narrow policy mostly related to anti-corruption and fraud. Since then, it was expanded to counter gains in voting eligibility to low income. Its reach grew through the criminalization of African Americans following the Civil War. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, felony disenfranchisement ballooned alongside mass incarceration to become the principal barrier to voting eligibility in the United States. The recent expansion of voting eligibility in Florida confronts a history
of injustice, particularly against African Americans. At the same time, Amendment 4 is incomplete in its continued exclusion of people who were convicted of murder or sex crimes, those who are unable to pay fines and fees, and those who are currently incarcerated, on parole, or on probation.