On Tuesday, when a historic amendment to the Florida Constitution restoring the voting rights of as many as 1.5 million former felons went into effect, Office was finally able to register.

The measure known as Amendment 4 was approved in November by nearly 65 percent of Florida voters. But the state’s new governor, Ron DeSantis, a Republican who was sworn into office Tuesday, has suggested the amendment could face challenges down the line.

DeSantis has said state lawmakers should craft legislation when their session begins in March to define exactly which former felons are now eligible, though the amendment appears to lay that out explicitly.

“It’s not delaying it — the people spoke on it,” DeSantis told reporters. “But I think it’s got to be implemented the way that the people intended.”

The language of the amendment was intended to be self-executing, making the restoration of rights automatic for former felons without murder or felony sex convictions “after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation,” without the need for any additional legislative rules. Previously, ex-felons could apply for re-enfranchisement from the governor and state Cabinet.

Politically, the prospect of potentially adding hundreds of thousands of people to the Florida voter rolls has excited the state’s Democrats, who point to the fact that African-Americans, who tend to vote Democratic, have been disproportionately disenfranchised in the nation’s largest presidential battleground state (though the majority of the population with felony convictions is white).

But Daniel A. Smith, chairman of the political science department at the University of Florida, said it was “fanciful” to expect Florida’s voter rolls to swell quickly. He noted that re-enfranchised felons may not be politically active — or lean toward any particular party.

Howard Simon, former executive director of the Florida ACLU, retired after having working on felon rights restoration for 18 years.

“Voting rights can’t be hostage to every change in political administration,” Simon said. “Ultimately, we’ve got to drag Florida kicking and screaming out of the post-Jim Crow civil rights era.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.