Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to restore voting rights for 200,000 former felons

Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced a sweeping executive order to restore the voting rights of roughly 200,000 former convicted felons who have served their sentences. Virginia has some of the most stringent restrictions on ex-felons voting of any state, with most effectively barred for life. Circumventing the intransigent Republican legislature, McAuliffe’s new order will allow anyone who has served their time and is not on parole to register to vote.

If this order survives likely legal challenges, it would be a major victory for voting rights, particularly for African Americans. Just as legislators intended when felon disenfranchisement spread soon after the Civil War, black Americans are disproportionately harmed by felon disenfranchisement. According to the Sentencing Project, 20 percent of black Virginians are disenfranchised even though the vast majority of them are no longer incarcerated, are not on parole, and are not even on probation.

Virginia isn’t the only state with such a shocking level of disenfranchisement and there remains much work to be done on this issue when one in four black adults can’t vote in states such as Florida. These laws have always been used to further white supremacy and serve no valid state interest. All citizens deserve the fundamental right to vote and thanks to Gov. McAuliffe’s efforts, 200,000 more Virginians could soon have that right. Let’s work to make sure more states follow suit.