Power

Virginia GOP Rushes to Disenfranchise Voters Ahead of November Elections

“There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans—we should remedy it,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said last month ahead of his decision to restore voting rights for those convicted of felonies. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can.”

State senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment Jr. (R-James City) and four voters are among the plaintiffs in the case against McAuliffe. Wikimedia Commons

The Virginia Supreme Court will hear the state GOP’s challenge to Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s (D) April order restoring voting rights to more than 200,000 people who have been convicted of felonies.

The court will hold a special session on the case July 19 in Richmond, accommodating a request from Republicans in the state legislature to expedite the case in order to keep “thousands of constitutionally ineligible felons to vote in the November election.” GOP leaders argue that the case should be decided by August 25 to avoid “casting doubt on the legitimacy” of the upcoming November election, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“We are pleased the Supreme Court recognizes the urgency of our challenge to Governor McAuliffe’s unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of executive power,” Virginia House Speaker William Howell (R-Stafford) said in a statement.

Howell is one of the plaintiffs in the case against McAuliffe, along with state senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment Jr. (R-James City) and four voters. The group claims that McAuliffe overstepped his authority by issuing an April 22 order to restore voting rights to those in the state convicted of felonies who “served their time and completed any supervised release, parole or probation requirements,” instead of restoring voting rights on an individual basis.

The order, which is to be renewed monthly to continually restore the rights of those who complete their sentences, has already allowed more than 5,800 people previously disenfranchised to register to vote, the Washington Post reported.

About 6 million Americans are blocked from the ballot box because of criminal convictions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that addresses voting rights. According to the organization’s website, “These laws, deeply rooted in our troubled racial history, have a disproportionate impact on minorities. Across the country, 13 percent of African-American men have lost their right to vote, which is seven times the national average.”

President Obama won Virginia in the 2012 presidential election with 50.8 percent of the vote. He won the state by with 52.7 percent of the vote in 2008.

Virginia is one of three states in which more than one in five Black adults are disenfranchised by laws prohibiting those that have been convicted of felonies from voting.

Though McAuliffe’s order may have restored voting rights for more than 200,000 Virginians, those who have completed their sentences will rely on the order’s monthly renewal to regain their rights, according to the Sentencing Project.

“There’s no question that we’ve had a horrible history in voting rights as relates to African-Americans—we should remedy it,” McAuliffe said last month in an interview ahead of his decision to restore voting rights. “We should do it as soon as we possibly can.”