Florida was hit hard by Hurricane Michael last year, as the Category 4 storm devastated the state’s Panhandle region. Then, the November gubernatorial election brought its own political winds.

The Florida GOP’s choice for governor, Ron DeSantis, narrowly defeated Democratic contender Andrew Gillum, disappointing those seeking widespread progressive change in a state with notorious effects from climate change, police brutality, and election fraud politics.

Despite the triumph in the governor’s race for conservatives, Amendment 4, a felon voting rights law, was passed by two-thirds of voters in the last election. Its passage means over 1.4 million people can now register to vote in a move that substantially delinks citizenship from criminal records. This is part of the larger national prison reform effort to correct mass incarceration’s multigenerational damages.

Amendment 4 is socially and emotionally significant because it overthrows racist voting legislation dating back to the Civil War days.

Before the November election, 1 in 5 Black Floridians could not vote. It’s popular knowledge that mass incarceration historically targets communities of color through a variety of measures, including overpolicing of poor neighborhoods, disproportionate drug laws that call for lengthier sentences for crack cocaine convictions, and the buildup of the school-to-prison pipeline that criminalizes youth.

While Floridians voting for the amendment are still celebrating an important victory in a state with some of the harshest disenfranchisement laws in the U.S., those opposing the effort are now calling for "clarifying language" as former nonvoters are lining up to register.

None other than newly elected Gov. DeSantis is leading the opposition to Amendment 4. The amendment faced early criticism for not allowing those with murder and sex offense convictions to vote.

After all, "guilty" people change: how long should they be punished? And we shouldn’t assume all those with felony convictions are guilty to begin with, should we?

The U.S. legal system has been far from just. Racist convictions of innocent people, even on death row, are tracked by organizations like The Innocence Project, clouding any notion of fairness and equality under the law.

The restriction of voting to those felons without murder or sex offense convictions isn’t enough for Amendment 4 opponents. They are seeking other ways to curb the growing tide of new Florida voters.

What kind of "clarifying language" do Amendment 4 opponents call for? The issue here is that Amendment 4 is too lenient: there’s got to be more specific limitations, right?

One aspect of the amendment under dispute involves the language "upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation."

Just because someone is no longer locked up, and have already "done the time for the crime," doesn’t mean they can just go participate in the nation’s bustling representative democracy, right? That would be way too simple for a state government hardly known for its civil rights legacy.

DeSantis and the state GOP are angling to limit what pro-Amendment 4 activists claim is a "self-executing" law. They want the state legislature to debate and produce new implementation language once it meets in March 2019.

Some released felons still owe the state fees accrued during their incarceration. If the anti-Amendment 4 contingent has its way, these kinds of distinctions — that insist completion of all terms includes outstanding debt to courts — will be noted in newly crafted Amendment 4 language. This immediately impacts who can register to vote.

Meanwhile, people have been registering through the grassroots efforts of enthusiastic and determined pro-Amendment 4 activists, especially the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which led the Amendment 4 push. The Coalition encourages disenfranchised felons to register to vote now, despite the looming political battle once state legislature is back in session.

Will those who register before the legislature meets to clarify Amendment 4 language have their voting rights recognized? Or will Florida again deliver on what it is now famous for: confusing and even suspect election results followed by highly political legal maneuvers?

The official vote tally in Florida’s November 2018 gubernatorial race was 4,075,445 for DeSantis and 4,041,762 for Gillum. If you do the math, even if those felon voters who still owe court fees after release are unable to vote, Amendment 4 has ushered in a new class of voters. Add this number to the new population of Puerto Rican voters touching down in the state after Hurricane Maria and we have a very contentious and new political dynamic in the state, and the nation, for that matter.

Just how much of a political difference this will make is what we are all waiting to see.