Virginia’s rules on felon voting rights will soon change : NPR

RICHMOND, Va. — Tati King says he wants to set an example for his grandchildren that it’s important to make sure their voices are heard.

It’s why King, a 54-year-old living in Alexandria, Va., is suing Virginia election officials in federal court to get his voting rights restored.

“I want them to see that their grandfather was on the right side of things for once in his life,” he said.

King lost his ability to vote in the state because of a 2018 felony drug possession conviction. He served 11 months in prison and is now challenging Virginia’s constitutional rule that automatically strips anyone’s voting rights if they’re convicted of a felony. The constitution gives the governor sole authority to restore those rights.

More than 300,000 Virginians currently can’t vote because of the policy, according to filings in King’s legal challenge — which is just one of the ways Virginia’s voter restoration system could soon change.

Virginia’s incoming governor, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, is expected to implement changes and a proposed constitutional amendment could make the restoration process automatic once someone’s served out their sentence.

How Virginia stands out

Virginia is one of just three states where only the governor can restore voting rights for people with felony convictions.

And the governors of the other two states, Iowa and Kentucky, have signed orders to make the process automatic for most people with felony convictions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks voting regulations.

Virginia’s current governor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, rolled back efforts from his last three predecessors — a Republican and two Democrats — that made the restoration process automatic in most cases. He’s implemented a case-by-case review system that has led to far fewer people getting their voting rights back.

Youngkin’s protocol has sparked lawsuits and questions about the criteria he’s using to make decisions. It’s also opened up transparency questions.

“In the current administration, it’s been tough, because we in the past had tried to help people understand the process and figure out what their status was and what they could do to get the right to vote back,” said Rebecca Green, a law professor at William and Mary. “But it’s been a very low information environment.”

Youngkin’s office has said it’s appropriate to consider each application individually. They said Youngkin’s decisions are made after a review of all the information, including the nature of someone’s felony conviction, whether a gun was used and if court fees are paid.

King’s case

King’s lawsuit argues the state’s disenfranchisement policy violates the Virginia Readmission Act of 1870 — which allowed Virginia to regain congressional representation after the Civil War.

In exchange for Virginia’s readmission, the state was prohibited from adding laws that take away people’s right to vote, with the only exception being those convicted of a crime considered a common law felony at the time.

These 1870 felonies include crimes like murder and manslaughter, but not drug-related ones like the one King was convicted of.

“Virginia’s one of the only states where we still have to go through hurdles and hoops in order for somebody to tell you, ‘OK, now we see you,'” King said. “I think the laws are draconian, I think they’re archaic and it should be changed.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and other groups helped King bring the case forward.

Vishal Agraharkar, a senior supervising attorney for the ACLU of Virginia who’s working on King’s case, said thousands of Virginians with felony convictions could get their voting rights restored if the case is successful.

“Virginia has been illegally disenfranchising people, and disproportionately Black people, who were targeted with this disenfranchisement after the Civil War for more than 100 years,” Agraharkar said. “We’re hoping that we can put that legacy of Jim Crow behind us.”

Civil liberties advocates have often pointed to the disproportionate impact of felon disenfranchisement on Black people.

A 2024 report from the Sentencing Project — which advocates for responses to crime that minimize imprisonment — said an estimated 4 million Americans had lost their right to vote because of a felony conviction. This included one in every 22 eligible Black voters, which was more than triple the rate of other voters.

Big changes are on the horizon

As King waits on a ruling that could change Virginia’s voter disenfranchisement practice, Spanberger is expected to change the rights restoration process used by Youngkin once she takes office in January.

The governor-elect has vowed to ensure all eligible Virginians who have served their prison sentences have their voting rights restored.

Voters could take it out of the governor’s hands completely if they approve a proposed constitutional amendment that would automatically restore people’s voting rights once they’ve been released from prison.

To get the amendment on the ballot for voters, the state legislature needs to pass the proposal in back-to-back legislative sessions.

The Democratic-led General Assembly has already passed the measure once, and after Democrats expanded their majority in the House of Delegates earlier this month, the proposal is expected to make it on the state’s ballot during next November’s midterm elections.

Agraharkar, the ACLU attorney, said he hopes King’s legal challenge and the constitutional amendment will usher in a new age of voter access.

“Both of these efforts can work together to really make a big dent, hopefully this coming year, make really an enormous dent in felony disenfranchisement in Virginia, and hopefully this becomes a relic of the past,” he said.