Florida is home to over 1.6 million people with felony convictions. It’s also one of only three states that permanently bar convicted felons from voting. To get a sense of the sheer impact of the policy, do the math: the state is home to about 15 million adult US citizens, meaning that more than 10 percent of the Florida voting-age populace is disenfranchised.

This November, a ballot measure aims to automatically restore voting rights to approximately 1.2 of those 1.6 million people. In an attempt to make it more palatable to already eligible Florida voters, the amendment — which requires 60 percent of the popular vote to pass — excludes convicted violent offenders.

Disenchanted with two-party politics, American socialists haven’t always made voting rights a top priority. But we should. Expanded suffrage has been a key site of struggle for socialists throughout history, and with good reason. Voting alone may not deliver revolution, but universal suffrage is, as Friedrich Engels put it, “a splendid weapon,” and one we must have in our arsenal if we want to challenge the political power of capitalist elites.