Florida may restore voting rights to 1.7 million ex-felons: So long, Republicans!

[Sam McGee]

39. To clairfy about Virginia

While it is true that individuals convicted of a felony in Virginia lose the right to vote, that right can be restored by the governor after the individual completes his/her sentence.-- it's in the state Constitution.

This was brought to a head a couple of years ago.

Earlier, our Republican Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli started restoring voting rights to felons who had served their sentences. Cuccinelli -- a hard-core rightwinger who is one of my favorite targets -- discovered that over half of disenfranchised felons in VA had completed their sentences 20 or more years ago. Over half were more than 47 years old. So -- McDonnell restored the rights of about 10,000 felons before he left office.

Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffee signed a blanket order, restoring the rights of 206,000 former felons. VA Republicans sued and the state Supreme Court ruled against McAuliffe. According to the state Supreme Court, the state Constitution requires the governor to restore rights one at a time, not en masse.

So -- McAuliffe proceeded to issue over 150,000 restorations, one at a time. By the time he leaves office in a few days, most of the original 206,000 will have had their rights restored.

https://pilotonline.com/opinion/columnist/guest/article_44d23a8a-4899-593b-9a40-dde072c96f80.html

I'm a Democrat and am the secretary of my rural county's electoral board. We have a friendly lawyer from Richmond who comes to our county for one day every other month to help former felons apply to have their rights restored, pro bono. It's a simple matter of filling out a form and applying to the Secretary of the Commonwealth. We advertise beforehand in local papers, flyers throughout the community, and announcements at churches. Every session sees between four and ten former felons apply for restoration . . . takes a few weeks but every one of them succeeds. We then take them to the Registrar's office and get them registered to vote.

Each year for the past few years, a Democrat in our General Assembly introduces a Constitutional amendment to establish automatic restoration. With a new Democratic governor and Democrats poised to take control of the VA General Assembly in 2019, we just might win this one eventually.