On Tuesday, an amendment to the Florida constitution restored the voting rights of more than a million people with felony convictions. Amendment 4 needed sixty per cent to pass and won sixty-four, reflecting bipartisan support in a famously divided state. That leaves only two states, Iowa and Kentucky, that place lifelong voting bans on all citizens with felony convictions.

Steve Phalen, who is thirty-six and works at an HVAC distribution center in Florida, has not voted since he was a college student. In 2005, while under the influence of antidepressants and alcohol, he set fire to an empty bar in Wisconsin. After pleading guilty to first-degree arson and reckless public endangerment in the second degree, he served a year of house arrest and a dozen years of probation. On Tuesday night, when he learned that Amendment 4 had passed, he wrote, in a text message, “I’ve got one of those full, involuntary smiles and a feeling of agency I haven’t felt in nearly 13 years.”

Floridians have been fighting felony disenfranchisement since the early two-thousands, when civil-rights groups sued the state, unsuccessfully. Under the Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who made more people eligible for partial clemency, more than a hundred thousand Floridians regained their right to vote. (Crist switched parties in 2012, and won reëlection as a House Democrat on Tuesday.) But those numbers fell sharply under Governor Rick Scott, who adopted a case-by-case clemency system that, according to reporting by the Palm Beach Post, exacerbated racial inequality.

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The new amendment takes effect automatically for citizens who have completed all prison terms, probation, and parole. It excludes those convicted of murder or felony sex offenses. Phalen was reached by phone on Tuesday, while the polls were still open. His account has been edited for clarity and condensed.

“I think it’s important to start with the conviction. I was living with what is called delayed grief. I lost my father at the age of five—not old enough to understand the ramifications of not coping with that loss. Instead of professional psychological help, I sought alcohol and drugs. That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a significant wound.

“Early on the morning of May 6, 2005, I was walking home alone in downtown La Crosse, Wisconsin. I was a college student at the time. I was pretty inebriated that night. I was walking through alleyways, and at this bar in particular, I just happened to see that there was a hole in the door above the doorknob. I was able to reach through and unlock the door.

“I felt like I was on a different planet. Like there would be no consequences. To this day, I can’t quite articulate what was going through my mind. I’m still uncomfortable talking about it. I was apprehended at the scene, because the fire was giving out smoke. Long story short, a lot of structural damage. No one was hurt. I’m still paying restitution.

“In the state of Wisconsin, when you are on supervision or incarcerated, you lose the right to vote until you are discharged. It’s understandable. I personally don’t think it’s out of line that, while on supervision for a criminal offense, some of your rights as a citizen are suspended. However, there is a part of me that is pretty strongly in favor of voting rights, regardless of incarceration status. As long as you’re paying taxes, and you’re contributing financially to our shared social world, you should have a say in what’s going on.

“I learned of Florida’s ban in June of 2015, when I moved out of Wisconsin with my wife. I met with my probation officer, and she said, ‘You know you can’t vote in the state.’ I was, like, ’Absolutely.’ And I ask a clarifying question: ‘This is just until I’m discharged, correct?’

“She’s, like, ‘No, you can’t vote in the state of Florida, even after you’ve been discharged.’ And I clarified again. ‘Even though the crime occurred in Wisconsin?’ And she’s, like, ‘Correct. Doesn’t matter.’

“It was terrible, frankly. I feel civic engagement is incredibly important. Not being able to cast a vote is something that feels like my civic identity, my identity as a citizen, is just completely erased. Made irrelevant. It’s, like, you’re never going to fully be a part of this country anymore.

“I think people change over the course of a life. We become different people as we age. We become different people as we get different experiences. It seems incredibly backward, in our current day and age, that this element of my citizenship would hinge on this twenty-three-year-old version of me that made a terrible decision.

“I heard about Amendment 4 last year, in November. My folks came down from Wisconsin, and at a farmers’ market, we saw someone with a petition, collecting signatures. It turned out to be Amendment 4, granting the right to vote to felons, except murder and sex offenses. I put my signature on that. And it’s been exciting.

“There’s a lot of people in my life that don’t necessarily know I have a conviction. When I share that this would allow me to vote, it does change their mind a little bit. My in-laws are dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. I could see my mother-in-law not voting for that. Not because she doesn’t respect me as a person, but she has a strong moral compass. You know, the whole personal-responsibility thing. But she was telling people to vote for Amendment 4. She voted for Amendment 4. I smiled quite big when I heard that.

“I have felt, in some ways, civically helpless, especially in the 2016 election. Especially as someone who lives in the state of Florida. I’m big on social rights. I’m big on social justice. Candidates who don’t promote hate, who don’t promote violence, who instead promote compassion, are going to get my vote.”