While millions of Americans head to the polling booths on Tuesday, many others will stay at home.

Not through apathy or laziness but because they have lost their civil rights.

Around 5.85 million Americans who have been convicted of a felony are prohibited from voting on Tuesday.

As well as being banned from voting they are also prohibited from serving on a jury.

In Virginia, felons have to put together a case and petition the state's governor to restore their rights individually.

Felon disenfranchisement laws include bans for life in Kentucky, Iowa and Florida, even though many convictions are for personal-use drug possession and do not result in custodial sentences.

One in five African Americans of voting age is denied the right to vote in Virginia.

Jason Frazier, a 35-year-old manual labourer, is one of America's disenfranchised adults.

Mr Frazier was convicted of embezzling money from his employer 13 years ago. His actions resulted in a one-year prison sentence - and losing his rights.

"It shouldn't be something that follows you for the rest of your life," he says.

"Once you have done your time, you should be free".

Mr Frazier was one of an estimated 206,000 Virginians who thought their rights were about to be restored when the state's governor ordered a blanket restoration for all convicted felons earlier this year.

His hopes were dashed when the state's supreme court struck down the governor's order.

"I filled out all the paperwork and everything got approved," Mr Frazier explains.

"I thought, 'That is great'. Then it got denied after the court intervened".

Mr Frazier's only route to a voting booth is now to build a case individually and lobby the governor to enfranchise him personally.

His inability to participate in Tuesday's election is made worse by the fact his mother is overseeing the elections in neighbouring Matoaca. The irony is not lost on him.

Still, Mr Frazier is not impressed by this year's nominees.

"Neither candidate is worth a damn. Trump is an assclown with all his Twitter battling," he sighs.

The American Civil Liberties Union is fighting to restore voting rights to convicted felons.

"Most people who get convicted of a felony do not go to prison", explains the ACLU's Hope Amezquita.

"They live in the community. They pay taxes. They try to get employment".

Since April, the governor has restored more than 60,000 people's voting rights following their personal petitions.

Amezquita is concerned, however, that on election day they will have problems voting.

For many it will be their first time voting and she is concerned some staff will not know that individual felons are registered voters.

The campaign to end the state's disenfranchisement rules is a long-lasting one.

"Virginia has a really, really long and dark history when it comes to felon disenfranchisement and its impact on the African American community," she says.

"In the 1901 constitutional convention looking at Virginia's constitution legislators made really horrible statements about what they were targeting."

Amezquita added: "A particular legislator, Carter Glass, said the point of the felony disenfranchisement provision in the Virginia constitution is to 'eliminate the darkie'."

With the world watching America's democracy in action on Tuesday it is worth remembering the nearly six million Americans who, like Mr Frazier, will be looking on too, an involuntary bystander in the exercise of self-government.

Analysis by Aidan Kerr, STV's digital politics reporter. Aidan is covering the election from Washington DC and a number of swing states.