⁍ The sense of injustice has galvanized first-time Black voters to vote in the Nov. 3 presidential election.

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⁍ Grassroots advocacy organizations are hoping to nurture new-voter enthusiasm.

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⁍ One obstacle has been laws in many states that prevent people with felony convictions from voting.

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– “I never thought I could because of my felony record,” Mike Tyson tweeted in September. “I’m proud to finally vote.” Tyson, who served three years of a six-year sentence for rape in 1992, is one of millions of Black voters who will be allowed to vote for the first time in Tuesday’s election, the New York Times reports. Activists say that while Black voters tend to support Democrats, they face many barriers to voting, including laws that prevent them from voting after a felony. “Our history of disenfranchisement of people of color is really rooted in our history of racial oppression and generally woven into the fabric of our system of mass incarceration,” Amanda Zarrow of the Voting Rights Lab tells the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Voter suppression targeted at Black Americas … is hugely consequential in terms of swinging the result,” she says. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have changed their voting laws since the 2016 election to allow ex-felons, including Tyson, to vote, the Times reports. Voting rights advocates are using everything from phone calls and text messages to contact millions of Black and Latino voters in swing states. “We are asking them what is their plan to vote,” says Jennifer Epps-Addison of the Center for Popular Democracy.