Convicted felons serving jail sentences in California county jails will now get to participate in an activity besides three meals a day and recreation time: votingin elections.

Governor Jerry Brown signed new legislation into effect as part of a reform backers say will help prisoners transition back into society while still serving time for their crimes.

The bill he signed would let thousands of felons doing time in county jails to vote in California elections, the LA Times reported.

The new law also reinstates eligibility to vote for those ex-prisoners on probation or being kept under community supervision starting next year.

The new law takes effect January 1, so will have no impact on this November's elections.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would allow felons to vote while they are still behind bars

One state lawmaker, Sen. Patricia Bates, slammed the legislation. “It is very disappointing that felons still serving their sentences behind bars will now be able to vote since Governor Brown failed to veto this really bad bill,” she said in a statement.

But Daniel Zingale, senior vice president of The California Endowment health foundation, told the paper, 'Mass disenfranchisement for minor offenses is a tragic legacy of the Jim Crow era that disproportionately affects and diminishes the power of communities of color.'

California's action fits within a broader national push to expand voting rights for ex-felons, with laws getting determined state by state.

GOTV: Prisoners taking part in a rehabilitation program walk in a recreation yard at a vocational institution in Tracy, California. Under a new California law, felons serving time in county prisons would get their voting rights restored

The push for in-prison voting is part of a broader national effort to restore the franchise Americans who served time

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe has been battling with his state's legislature in the courts over his own effort to restore voting rights. In his latest action, he individually restored voting rights to 13,000 felons.

McAuliffe cited the power of 'second chances.' Republicans in the state have sought to block him. His earlier effort to restore voting to 200,000 felons could have had a significant effect on the elections in a state that is a presidential battleground this year.

California is already expected to be heavily in Hillary Clinton's column.

In Congress, Democrats have introduced legislation to restore voting rights in federal elections to criminals upon release from jail, while Kentucky Senator Rand Paul introduced legislation to restore voting rights to non-violent offenders.

'It would be transformative if everybody voted, President Obama told a Cleveland crowd last year.