Since taking office in January, Gov. Abigail Spanberger has restored the voting rights of more than 66,000 Virginians who lost them due to felony convictions, her office announced Friday.
“The right to vote is foundational to who we are as Americans,” Spanberger said in a statement accompanying the announcement.
Virginia is one of three states that automatically strip someone’s right to vote after they’re convicted of a felony. The governor has sole authority to give someone these rights back, either through the restoration process once they’ve completed their felony sentence or via a pardon.
Spanberger sharply criticized the process used by her predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, who faced intense scrutiny over a case-by-case review system that led to significantly fewer restorations each year he was in office.
“I’m proud that — after contending with my predecessor's efforts to deny Virginians their fundamental rights — we have restored the rights of more than 66,000 Virginians who have served their time,” Spanberger said.
“These Virginians deserve the right to use their vote, make their voices heard, and be recognized as contributing citizens to our Commonwealth and country.”
Youngkin rolled back the automatic restoration process used by his three predecessors and reviewed each application on an individual basis. A massive dip in people who got their voting rights back followed.
According to annual reports the secretary of the commonwealth is required to share, Youngkin restored the voting rights of fewer than 10,000 Virginians during his entire tenure.
In a little over six months, Spanberger is at 66,085.
Spanberger’s administration says it has since reshaped the restoration process, reinstating practices to review applicants and to “proactively” find Virginians who have lost their right to vote.
This includes removing a Youngkin-era requirement for applicants to share if they have “paid all fines, fees and restitution.”
In its press release, the governor’s office says Youngkin “gutted” the system he inherited.
According to the governor’s office, Youngkin’s administration did not share records of denials with the incoming Spanberger administration. They said Youngkin also didn’t share the applications that weren’t reviewed when he left office and she took over.
“Over the past six months, our work has been guided by Governor Spanberger’s deep belief that Virginians who served their time deserve their civil rights,” said Secretary of the Commonwealth Candi Mundon King. “That is why our team reviews every individual who has their voting rights restored, working with our law enforcement partners to make sure we get it right.”
Most of Youngkin’s first-year rights restorations came under an expedited process started by former Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell and expanded by Democratic successors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam.
McDonnell automatically restored voting rights to nonviolent offenders who completed their sentences and probation or parole, paid their court costs and finished all court-ordered conditions.
After the Virginia Supreme Court overturned McAuliffe’s blanket executive order that would have restored rights to 206,000 people, he used a streamlined process to individually restore them for more than 173,000 people.
Northam then removed a requirement that people must complete parole before they can get their rights back. He restored rights to more than 126,000 Virginians during his time in office.
In her statement, Spanberger encouraged people to support a constitutional amendment on Virginia’s Nov. 3 ballot that would take it out of the governor's hands and make the voter restoration process automatic for people who finish their felony sentences.
The governor called the disenfranchisement policy “a shameful relic of our Jim Crow past.”
Virginia’s constitutional disenfranchisement rule was partly struck down earlier this year in a landmark federal court ruling that narrows the disqualifying convictions to a list of certain crimes.
However, the implementation of that process has sparked concerns that people who shouldn’t have ever lost their voting rights for their conviction have been left in registration limbo.
Virginians who have had their rights restored must still register to vote. The deadline to register to vote for the Aug. 4 primaries has passed, though Virginia offers same-day registration with provisional ballots for voters who miss that deadline.