RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — A judge ruled in favor of a pair of disenfranchised voters Thursday who argued Virginia’s felony voting law violates a 150-year-old federal statute.
U.S. District Judge John Gibney ruled from the bench to grant summary judgment. He also certified a class that includes all Virginians who are currently or will be disqualified from voting due to convictions for crimes that were not considered felonies at common law in 1870…..
The plaintiffs, Tati King and Toni Johnson, who the state disenfranchised after drug- and child-neglect-related felonies, claim that Virginia’s felony disenfranchisement scheme violates the Virginia Readmission Act of 1870, which restored federal representation for the Confederate commonwealth after the Civil War. The 1870 law prohibited Virginia from amending the constitution to increase voting disenfranchisement, which was a political tool Southern states used during Reconstruction to strangle the nascent voting power of the formerly enslaved.
However, Virginia has amended its constitution twice, most recently in 1971, and today, a person convicted of any felony is stripped of their voting rights, which can be restored only by the governor. As a result, more than 300,000 Virginians cannot vote, including King and Johnson.