Virginia Republicans look to strip voting rights from 200,000 who just got it back
They want to reverse Governer Terry McAuliffe’s executive order giving felons the right to vote after they’ve served their time.
Click here for reuse options!McAuliffe, a Democrat, signed the order in April. Before that, Virginia was one of a small handful of states that permanently bar people who have been convicted of felonies from voting in elections. That practice—along with that of barring felons from voting while they are incarcerated, which is used in many more states—has been called out as a tool of racial and class-based disenfranchisement, based on statistics that show that poor people and people of color are far more likely to be branded as felons than their well-to-do white counterparts. Virginia’s policy, written into its constitution during the Civil War era, was explicitly aimed at disenfranchising black voters, McAuliffe said when he signed the order.
Now, a group of Republican state lawmakers is going to court over the action, arguing that McAuliffe overstepped the bounds of his executive power.
Copyright 2016 Liberaland
3 responses to Virginia Republicans look to strip voting rights from 200,000 who just got it back
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Warman1138 June 6th, 2016 at 14:23
Welcome to the world of republican voter registration reform, not everybody is welcome.
amersham46 June 6th, 2016 at 14:55
restricting voter access is like limiting your gene pooling by inbreeding, you are inviting your own death
Red Mann June 6th, 2016 at 17:51
Virginia is the state I live in, the legislature is controlled by sleaze bag Rethuglicans. They almost passed to rape by ultrasound bill. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/bob-mcdonnell-virginia-mandatory-ultrasound-bill_n_1327707.html They also screwed over my area, Hampton Roads with an unethical sweetheart to expand one of our tunnels and charge extortionate tolls. This was done behind closed doors and presented as a fait accompli.