But Florida had the highest number of people disenfranchised because of their criminal records. When nearly 65 percent of Florida voters approved Amendment 4, the momentous result was greeted as a historic civil rights victory in a state where African-Americans were disproportionately disenfranchised. The measure left just two other states, Iowa and Kentucky, with laws that prohibit anyone with a felony record from voting. Virginia has a similar law, but permits the governor to restore voting rights in individual cases, which has happened in at least 157,000 cases.

Pressed for time as they near the end of the annual session, senators on Thursday afternoon tacked the new repayment requirements onto a previously unrelated bill that addressed some of the elections problems that surfaced during last year’s recount. The surprise legislative maneuver forced Democrats who might have otherwise favored the elections bill to oppose it. The State House had earlier endorsed a bill that included the strict repayment provisions.

But as part of a compromise late Thursday between House and Senate Republicans, people with felony convictions would have ways to become eligible to vote other than just full repayment of fines and fees. They could ask a judge to waive financial obligations or convert them to community service. The Senate had initially hoped to be more lenient, and it appeared that the compromise in any case would leave a large number of potential voters unable to register.

“My heart is in a different place, and I would love to go farther,” Senator Jeff Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said before the vote on Thursday, invoking his Christian faith. “It should be our place to always try to seek mercy over sacrifice. So we will continue to work toward that goal.”

The final debate on the House floor on Friday lasted more than two hours, with black Democrats emphasizing that felons had been barred from voting in the first place in Florida as part of racist Jim Crow laws enacted during Reconstruction. Present in the House gallery was Desmond Meade, the president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, who has won national acclaim for his work.

Political scientists who study voter registration in Florida have said that re-engaging previously disenfranchised felons into the democratic process takes time and effort, and that any increase in the state’s voter rolls would be gradual and would probably follow existing trends in which most new voters in the state register without party affiliation.