Virginia restores voting rights to felons, barred from ballot box since civil war

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Virginia restores voting rights to felons, barred from ballot box since civil war

Governor Terry McAuliffe says restoring the vote to convicted felons
who have served their time would overturn the state’s history of
suppressing the black vote

Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington
Friday 22 April 2016 18.51 BST

Governor Terry McAuliffe of Virginia has paved the way for more than 200,000 convicted felons to be eligible to vote with a historic executive order announced on Friday.

McAuliffe, a Democrat, declared “a day for celebration” in remarks outside the state Capitol. The action, he said, would help overturn a history of suppressing the black vote in Virginia, where felons have been barred from voting since the civil war.

“With this action, we will send a message to these 206,000 individuals and to the world that Virginia will no longer build barriers to the ballot box, we will break them down,” McAuliffe said, adding that individuals who have completed their sentences would no longer be treated as “second-class citizens”.

Civil rights, particular the right to vote, had been a centerpiece of McAuliffe’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign. Since assuming office in 2014, the governor has taken steps to restore voting rights to 18,000 Virginians. Under McAuliffe’s new order, felons convicted of both violent and non-violent crimes will be able to vote so long as they have carried out their sentences.

Although there has been some bipartisan consensus on criminal justice reform, voting rights has remained a wedge issue among both political parties. And with Virginia as a key battleground in the 2016 election, the politicization of McAuliffe’s action was immediately apparent.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/22/virginia-restores-voting-rights-felons-governor-terry-mcauliffe