In the voting rights section of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s website, the language echoes President Barack Obama. “Americans should not have to jump through hoops to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” the text reads.

Obama had used a similar metaphor in 2014 when he said that “no citizen, including our servicemembers, should have to jump through hoops to exercise their most fundamental right.”

In a Medium post in March, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker lamented that “the punishing reality is that there are more African American men under criminal supervision today than there were enslaved in 1850” — an idea expressed in a Vox headline when singer John Legend raised it in a 2015 Oscar speech.

The actual source of the factoid appears to be Michelle Alexander, the author of the 2010 book “The New Jim Crow” and the subject of a piece titled “More Black Men Are In Prison Today Than Were Enslaved In 1850.”