Ex-felons should be allowed to vote.

Floridians who haven’t voted early or absentee will be able to head to the polls Tuesday for the state’s primary, when nominating contests for seats in Congress and the Legislature, and races for many local offices, will be on the ballot.

early 12.4 million Floridians are registered to vote, according to the state Division of Elections. But another 1.6 million of voting age are locked out of the polls.

These disenfranchised Floridians have felony convictions in their backgrounds, and haven’t had their right to vote restored. Other states bar felons from voting, but most restore that right automatically after they have paid their debt to society by completing their sentences.

Florida’s hard line toward former felons voting isn’t just anti-democratic. It disproportionately punishes black state residents by disqualifying nearly one in four of them from casting ballots — prolonging a shameful legacy of policies concocted to disenfranchise African-Americans that began after the Civil War.

It also discourages ex-felons’ rehabilitation by excluding them from the most basic act of civic engagement. Darryl Paulson, a retired University of South Florida professor and fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, recently told the Miami Herald, “If conservatives want to end recidivism and reintegrate felons into society, the restoration of voting rights is essential.”

Finally, the policy mocks the principles of liberty and minimal government regulation most ardently espoused by its defenders, the state’s Republican leaders. Instead of hindering ex-felons from voting because they might support Democrats, GOP leaders should be working harder to convince them that their interests — starting with a stronger state economy that creates more opportunities — would be best advanced by voting Republican.

Florida is one of just three states — Iowa and Kentucky are the others — that disenfranchises ex-felons unless their right to vote has been restored through a clemency process. Before that process can even begin in Florida, ex-felons must wait at least five years after completing a sentence, probation and parole and making restitution. If they were convicted of a violent, sexual or drug-trafficking offense, they must wait seven years. Then, in a procedure heavy on forms and certified documents, they must petition and persuade the governor and the Florida Cabinet, who meet only four times a year as the state Clemency Board, to restore their right to vote.

The process was less onerous under former Gov. Charlie Crist. The Clemency Board automatically restored voting and other civil rights for nonviolent felons who had served their time. More than 155,000 regained their right to vote during Crist’s term.

But after Crist was succeeded by Rick Scott, he embraced a move from newly elected Attorney General Pam Bondi to impose the current process, with its years of delay and burdensome paperwork. As a result, only 2,200 felons have regained the right to vote since Scott took office in 2011.

A citizens’ group called the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is collecting signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in a future election that would automatically restore the right to vote to felons after they have completed their sentences, including prison time, parole and probation. In a concession to political reality, the amendment wouldn’t restore the right to anyone convicted of murder or serious sex crimes.

A citizens’ effort to restore the right to vote to ex-felons is commendable. But Scott, Bondi and the two other Cabinet members — CFO Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam — really should be leading it.