Virginia Says Yes to Felon Voting Rights, Sort Of

by Chris Cassidy · 2010-05-25 13:40:00 UTC
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Last month, Virginia Gov. McDonnell not only declared that he wanted to celebrate Confederate History Month — he also instituted de facto literacy tests for felons applying for reenfranchisement.

But just as McDonnell earned the uproar that ensued, he now deserves credit for streamlining the process to restore felons' voting rights.

The news comes as a surprise. McDonnell's just-announced improvements on the system, though, include reducing the time that non-violent offenders felons have to wait before petitioning the governor for their voting rights (from three to two years). He also promises executive action on each petition within 60 days of its filing.

These moves should be applauded, but not without reservation.

After all, Virginia remains one of only two states that still require executive action to restore offenders' voting rights. The commonwealth's law to automatically disenfranchise felons was born out of a 1902 plan to — in the words of a lawmaker at the time — "eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than 5 years, so that in no single county … will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government." Such law remains impressively effective at silencing black voices, disenfranchising proportionally five times more African-Americans voters than voters in the general population.

McDonnell's announcement is encouraging, but the extent of his commitment to restoring felons' civil rights remains to be seen. The promise to act swiftly on applications for voting rights could be satisfied by restoring or denying those petitions. His recent Republican predecessors, for example, have been reluctant to restore felons' civil rights (they restored the vote for only a few hundred felons each, while recent Democratic governors each restored several thousand felons' rights).

A partial solution to the shortcomings of felon reenfranchisement procedures in Virgina — and across the country — is currently pending on Capitol Hill. The Democracy Restoration Act would automatically restore offenders' voting rights in federal elections upon their release from prison, eliminating a patchwork of Jim Crow-era laws that continue to disproportionately affect black voters. The shortcomings of Gov. McDonnell's latest move in Virginia are only further proof of the desperate need for federal action.

Photo Credit: myJon

Chris Cassidy writes on law, judicial nominations and the Constitution as they pertain to criminal justice reform and women's rights.
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