The law still overburdens African Americans, who are more likely to be convicted of felonies compared to whites who commit the same crime. “Nearly one-third of those who have lost the right to vote for life in Florida are black, although African Americans make up just 16 percent of the state’s population,” she notes. “Florida’s law disenfranchises 21 percent of its total African American voting-age population.”

And many who are never even accused of a crime are affected.

Disenfranchisement echoes across communities and generations: Some eligible voters are less likely to vote when their friends and neighbors are staying home; children who never see their parents vote grow up are less likely to cast ballots themselves.

Put simply, the status quo is a moral abomination.

White supremacists sought to deny a whole race the right to vote; when they failed, a lifetime ban on felons voting struck them as the next best thing; their racist scheme not only succeeded, it is operative in Florida, the worst of U.S. states with similar laws, 150 years later. And the scale is enough to change the course of history, even setting aside those echoes of disenfranchisement to focus on first-order effects. In 2016, when the gambit of the long-dead racists disqualified 1.6 million Floridians from voting, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the state by just 112,911 votes.

Righting this wrong wouldn’t just advance moral justice in Florida.

The state presently considers clemency applications from felons hoping to have their voting rights restored on a case-by-case basis, imposing high costs on its bureaucracy. And some experts believe voting helps convicted felons to reintegrate themselves into civic life; rates of recidivism seem to be lower among those who vote, though the non-random nature of who is granted clemency may explain that effect.

How to right the wrong that will persist for another 150 years if nothing is done?

If enough signatures are gathered, an amendment to restore voting rights for felons, exempting murderers and sex offenders, can appear on Florida’s ballot in 2018.

The Florida Supreme Court has already approved the language.

But the last time Floridians for a Fair Democracy, the group behind the effort, tried to get this reform on the ballot, it failed to gather enough signatures. This time around, it has until February 1, 2018, to get 766,200 signatures verified as legitimate, meaning it probably needs all the signatures gathered by the end of this year.

It’s currently at just 172,184 signatures.

Florida Governor Rick Scott won’t help. He benefits from the voting framework the long-dead racists initiated. Like many Republicans, he denies any racial motive for pursuing and defending laws that disproportionately suppress turnout among the racial groups most likely to vote Democratic. You’d think Democrats would work furiously to re-enfranchise those voters, given how narrowly the party lost Florida and the presidency in 2000 and 2016, and Florida’s likely swing-state status in future contests.