Convicted felons should have their rights to vote restored once they’ve been released from prison, even if still on probation or parole, the Minnesota Senate voted Thursday.

The move was spurred by activists who say felons should be encouraged.

“If you’re still a citizen, don’t you deserve the right to participate in our democracy?” said Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park. “Once they’re back out in the community, from Day One … they’re paying taxes, but they don’t have the right to vote on who their representatives are imposing those taxes?”

Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, said Minnesota has 47,000 felons living in communities, and called them “our family members, neighbors, friends.” Letting those felons vote, Champion said, would help them reintegrate into society.

“We don’t want people in prison, we don’t want them incarcerated,” Champion said. “We want them in our communities and doing positive things.”

Felons currently lose their voting rights while still serving out their sentence, even if released on parole or probation. The felon voting measure approved by the Senate on Thursday would continue to deny the vote while felons are incarcerated, but restore it upon release onto probation or parole.

But Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, asked the Senate to defeat felon voting, saying it was “incongruous” to allow people who have broken the law to help make the law through voting.

The DFL-controlled Senate rejected Limmer’s amendment, with all DFL lawmakers joining a handful of Republicans.

Another lawmaker, Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, offered a series of amendments to try to add more limitations to felon voting.

“In Minnesota, we have lots and lots of people on probation, by design, but please don’t come and try and convince me that because they’re on probation they have somehow fulfilled their obligation to society,” Newman said.

Among his proposals:

— Restore voting rights two years after release, not immediately

— Restore rights only after all fines or restitution has been paid

— Revoke the voting rights if an arrest warrant is issued to an individual on parole or probation

All eight of Newman’s proposals were also defeated.

Newman said he had moderated in his opposition to felon voting, from outright opposition when current congressman Keith Ellison sponsored it as a lawmaker in 2006 to qualified opposition now.

Sen. Dave Thompson, R-Lakeville, called felon voting one of several “issues that cut deep into people’s hearts.”

“The hardest issues to resolve … are when core values, core principles we hold deeply, come up against one another,” Thompson said. “This is a classic example.”

The vote was a triumph for activists who have been pushing to restore felon voting for years. On Thursday, several dozen with the group ISAIAH gathered outside the Senate chambers for a prayer rally in support of felon voting and two other measures: juvenile justice reform and driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.

All three provisions have been included in Senate policy bills, but not in similar bills in the Republican-controlled House.

Rally leaders said they wanted to keep pressure on sympathetic lawmakers so their priorities wouldn’t be abandoned when the House and Senate negotiate compromises.

The Senate passed a bill late Thursday containing felon voting and several other issues by a vote of 39-22.

Follow David Montgomery at twitter.com/dhmontgomery.