MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA Over 200,000 convicted felons will have their voting rights restored in Virginia.
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The governor of Virginia announced today that more than 200,000 people convicted of felonies will now be eligible to vote in the state after he signed an executive order restoring their civil rights. Not only will these criminals have the right to vote, but they will also be serving on our juries.
The year before, McAuliffe reduced the mandatory waiting period for those convicted of a violent felony to apply to vote again.
The majority of the 206,000 potential new voters in Virginia are African-American, and according to The New York Times, Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders might have spent millions of dollars trying to gain even the half-point edge such a voting bloc could give Democrats.
Governor McAuliffe is also a close ally of Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee for president. The state GOP accused the governor of “political opportunism”.
“I am stunned yet not at all surprised by the Governor’s action”, Howell said”.
The research draft goes on to reference the history of voter disenfranchisement pertaining to felons in Virginia and other states.
McAuliffe pushed back on the criticism, saying he had consulted both legal and constitutional experts as well as Virginia attorney general Mark Herring prior to taking the action.
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Gov. McAuliffe said this will act will help restore the rights of ex-convicts. One in five African-Americans in Virginia are disenfranchised, according to the Sentencing Project, an organization that advocates for felons’ voting rights. “The office has always been a stepping stone to a job in Hillary Clinton’s cabinet”. Other states have been gradually been changing their laws to provide that voting and other civil rights are automatically restored upon completion of a sentence, including any conditions of probation or parole. In June 2015, he reformed the state’s process for regaining voting rights, eliminating a provision that required them to pay outstanding court costs and feed before they could register. I believe it is time to cast off Virginia’s troubling history of injustice and embrace an honest, clean process for restoring the rights of these men and women. “While I have been a vocal supporter of the restoration of rights, for example, it is an issue that must be addressed through the legislature and by the will of the people”, he said in a statement. Nothing in this Order restores the right to ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms.
