What the columnists said

Voters give felons back the vote, expand Medicaid

By granting the vote to convicted felons, Florida has banished “the ghost of Jim Crow,” said Conor Friedersdorf in TheAtlantic .com. The bar on voting was part of a sordid history of suppressing voting by blacks, who are disproportionately arrested and imprisoned. The “hugely consequential” measure extends the vote to more than 1 million people, a potential game changer not only statewide but nationally: In the past two presidential elections, the margin of victory in Florida was 1.2 percent or less.

Tuesday’s results are “a new high for marijuana legalization advocates,” said Abby Vesoulis in Time. Thirty-three states now have some form of legalized marijuana, and Tuesday’s vote comes on the heels of legalization in Canada and a decision decriminalizing pot by Mexico’s Supreme Court. But it’s not all smooth sailing, said Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post. The resounding rejection of a legalization bill in deep-red North Dakota “underscores Republican skepticism.”

The trio of ballot initiatives expanding Medicaid proves that voters are coming around on Obamacare, said Harold Meyerson in the Los Angeles Times. Foes of the Affordable Care act disparaged the expansion of Medicaid. Now voters in three “rock-solid red states” have insisted on it, joining 33 other states that had already expanded the benefit. These ballot wins show that when they’re not distracted by lies, “the American people can figure out what’s actually good for them.”