Victory for voting rights

[Legion Troll]

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) will make all ex-felons in Virginia eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election, part of a years-long effort to restore full voting rights to former convicts.

McAuliffe’s announcement will allow an estimated 180,000 to 210,000 former felons who are not in prison or on probation or parole to register to vote this year in Virginia.

Across the country, state laws vary on the right to vote for ex-offenders. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, about 5.85 million Americans with felony convictions (and misdemeanors in several states) are prevented from casting a ballot.

Three states — Kentucky, Iowa and Florida — permanently revoke voting rights for people with prior felony convictions. Virginia has also been one of those states that revoked the right to vote. But in recent years, both McAuliffe and former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) have used their executive authority to try to restore voting rights to ex-offenders.

Each state that allows ex-felons to vote has its own process. In 38 states and the District of Columbia, most ex-felons automatically gain the right to vote when they complete their sentence, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. In other states, an ex-felon has to apply to have voting rights restored.

Anyone who has been convicted of a felony and has completed his sentence and been released from supervised probation or parole is eligible. The new voting rights apply to felons convicted in another state and living in Virginia.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/22/about-200000-convicted-felons-in-virginia-will-now-have-the-right-to-vote-in-november/

 

[RockX]

I see the restored the voting rights to felons, just in time for the election...I wonder why they don't restore their rights to own and carry a gun????

 

[Legion Troll]

I see the restored the voting rights to felons, just in time for the election...I wonder why they don't restore their rights to own and carry a gun????

Are you saying that convicted felons who have served their sentences and aren't on parole should be denied the right to keep and bear arms?

 

[Legion Troll]

There was considerable fretting — or satisfaction — over Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s decision Friday to re-enfranchise 200,000 ex-felons in Virginia.

The state will be one of the central battlegrounds this November, and it is widely believed that ex-felons will vote heavily for Democrats. More than half are African-Americans, a big voting bloc for the party.

And the big number of newly enfranchised voters is actually larger than Obama’s 149,298-vote margin of victory there in 2012.

In North Carolina, a state demographically similar to Virginia, ex-felons registered as Democrats by 55 percent to 10 percent. The tallies were similar in two other states: New Mexico, at 52 percent for Democrats, and New York, at 62 percent.

Virginia is the sort of state that could decide a close national election.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/23/upshot/the-voting-effect-of-virginias-move-on-felons-surprisingly-small.html