They paid their debts to society. Nebraska still might not let them vote.

“It gets to the very fundamental nature of democracy,” says Danielle Jefferis, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law. “Who has a right to cast a ballot?” The Nebraska case weighs the redemptive power that the right to vote can have on those who’ve lost it, with the principle that voting rights come with responsibility to protect the integrity of elections. Thousands of Nebraskans with felony convictions could be denied voting rights under an opinion now under review by the Nebraska Supreme Court. But with Nebraska...