Thanks to citizen initiatives, 2018 was a surprisingly good year for voting rights. Florida’s Amendment 4, approved by a wide margin in November, would restore voting rights to 1.4 million people who have served their time for felony convictions. (In Florida, an example of a felony conviction is selling beer to a minor.) But a law passed by the legislature would have made rights restoration contingent on first paying fines and court costs. That would have effectively gutted the voter-approved measure.

Now, from Miami-Dade County, comes a deal between the prosecutor and public defender, as well as the state attorney. According to the deal, only fines and costs in the original sentencing document are counted – but not later costs. This will affect tens of thousands – and if it spreads throughout the whole state, hundreds of thousands – of Floridians.