The ACLU's factsheet breaks down the key features of the legislation:

• Restore voting rights in federal elections to nearly 4 million Americans who have been released from prison and are living in the community.
• Ensure that probationers never lose their right to vote in federal elections.
• Notify people about their right to vote in federal elections when they are leaving prison, sentenced to probation, or convicted of a misdemeanor.
• Create a uniform standard across the country in federal elections.
• Strengthen our democracy by creating a broader and more just base of voter participation.
• Aid law enforcement by encouraging participation in civic life, assisting reintegration, and rebuilding ties to the community.
• Facilitate election administration by streamlining registration issues and eliminating the opportunity for erroneous purges of eligible voters.
• Eliminate the confusion about who is eligible to vote.

The bill clearly doesn't take on the more contentious issues surrounding felony disenfranchisement, like whether to allow people inside prisons to vote. Nor does it address the way the criminal justice system skews the entire electorate by disproportionately locking up people of color, especially Black males. It does, however, mark an official recognition of two facts: 1) the population of people with felony convictions has grown to the point that the social impact of their disenfranchisement can't be ignored, and 2) a democracy's validity is undermined when the right to participate can be removed as punishment for a crime.

Image: Brown Spectator