Virginia: State works to help registrars verify felons’ voting rights restored | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Trust, but verify. Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s administration is taking to heart President Ronald Reagan’s famous maxim as the state works with local registrars to verify that felons’ voting rights were restored when the governor signed an order April 22 that opened the door to full civil rights for more than 206,000 Virginians who have done their time for felony convictions. For many, verification has required nothing more than a quick search in one of two state databases fully updated a week after McAuliffe’s order to show when felons’ rights had been restored. Almost 2,100 had registered to vote by midday Thursday.

Virginia: GOP lawmakers to sue over felons’ voting rights | Associated Press

Republican lawmakers in Virginia will file a lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s decision to allow more than 200,000 convicted felons to vote in November, GOP leaders said Monday. Republicans argue the governor has overstepped his constitutional authority with a clear political ploy designed to help the campaign of his friend and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the important swing state this fall. “Gov. McAuliffe’s flagrant disregard for the Constitution of Virginia and the rule of law must not go unchecked,” Senate Republican Leader Thomas Norment said in a statement. He added that McAuliffe’s predecessors and previous attorneys general examined this issue and concluded Virginia’s governor can’t issue blanket restorations.

Virginia: McAuliffe hits back at planned suit over felon voting rights | WTOP

Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly are planning to sue Gov. Terry McAuliffe over his executive action to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 felons who have served their sentences, but the Democratic governor says he’s not worried. “I have the legal authority and the moral authority” to take the action, McAuliffe told WTOP on Wednesday morning. “Virginia was [until 2013] one of four states that permanently did not allow a felon to get their voting rights back unless they went through this arduous process,” he said. “What I did was to join what 40 other states have done. … Why should Virginia be at the bottom of the heap [regarding] restoring felons’ rights?” Virginia House Speaker Bill Howell and Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment announced on Monday that they’ve retained a lawyer to challenge McAuliffe’s order, with Norment saying in a statement that “we are prepared to uphold the Constitution of Virginia and the rule of law by challenging Governor McAuliffe’s order in court.”

Virginia: Taxpayer costs approach $4 million in election lawsuits | Daily Press

Taxpayers have spent $3.7 million and counting on private attorneys in three redistricting lawsuits, as well as a fourth case targeting the state’s voter ID law. That includes nearly $180,000 billed so far by a state senator’s law firm, which represents her colleagues from both sides of the aisle in their ongoing effort to keep secret emails about the 2011 drawing of election maps. Those four state senators, as well as two former ones, each face $100 daily fines for not complying with a court order to turn those documents over. Unless a pending appeal before the state Supreme Court succeeds, taxpayers will be liable for the fines.

Virginia: Republicans Weigh Court Challenge to Voting Rights for Felons | The New York Times

Republican lawmakers in Virginia said on Monday that they were considering a court challenge to Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s decision to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons, opening the door to a legal battle that could create uncertainties about their ability to vote in November. “Governor McAuliffe’s flagrant disregard for the Constitution of Virginia and the rule of law must not go unchecked,” Thomas K. Norment Jr., a Republican and the majority leader of Virginia’s State Senate, said. On Monday, Mr. Norment and another Republican, William J. Howell, the speaker of the state’s House of Delegates, said they had retained Charles J. Cooper, a prominent conservative lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court in support of California’s onetime ban on same-sex marriage, “to examine the legal options to remedy this Washington-style overreach by the executive branch.” Mr. McAuliffe issued an order on April 22 that effectively did away with his state’s Civil War-era limitations on voting rights for convicted felons, many of whom are African-Americans, by allowing those who have completed their prison and parole or probation time to vote.

Virginia: Elections board adopts new voter registration form on party-line vote | Richmond Times-Dispatch

This year’s impending presidential election loomed large in a party-line vote by the State Board of Elections on Thursday to overhaul Virginia’s voter registration form to make it easier for Virginians to vote. In a 2-1 vote , the board adopted changes to the form, despite objections by local registrars who said they were blindsided when the proposed new form and revised regulations were posted at the beginning of this week. “This is not ready in any way, shape or form for prime time,” said Stafford County Registrar Greg Riddlemoser. He called it “foolishness” to adopt a new form just before a presidential election expected to increase voter turnout and registrars’ workload.

Virginia: McAuliffe restores voting rights for 206K ex-felons; GOP calls it move to boost Clinton | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons, a sweeping action the governor said was aimed largely at rectifying Virginia’s “long and sad history” of suppressing African-American voting power. The move, coming in a presidential election year, outraged Republicans who accused McAuliffe of abusing his power to help longtime ally Hillary Clinton win a battleground state by putting more likely Democratic voters on the books. The governor’s order applies to all violent and nonviolent felons who had finished their sentence and supervised release as of Friday, even those who have not applied for a restoration of rights. Previous Virginia governors have restored rights on an individual basis, but none has done it for an entire category of offenders with one pen stroke. The order stops short of creating automatic restoration of rights for all ex-offenders, because McAuliffe will have to sign similar orders on a monthly basis moving forward. Still, the order is a historic shift away from Virginia’s policy of lifetime disenfranchisement for those convicted of serious crimes.The governor’s order applies to all violent and nonviolent felons who had finished their sentence and supervised release as of Friday, even those who have not applied for a restoration of rights. Previous Virginia governors have restored rights on an individual basis, but none has done it for an entire category of offenders with one pen stroke. The order stops short of creating automatic restoration of rights for all ex-offenders, because McAuliffe will have to sign similar orders on a monthly basis moving forward. Still, the order is a historic shift away from Virginia’s policy of lifetime disenfranchisement for those convicted of serious crimes.

Virginia: Massive restoration of felon voting rights challenges registrars | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Hundreds of felons have rushed to register to vote in Richmond and Henrico County since Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored the civil rights of 206,000 last week, but local registrars say the state hasn’t given them the information they need to approve applications. Richmond General Registrar J. Kirk Showalter said she had been able to verify just two of the 102 applications the office had received by Tuesday night, while Henrico Registrar Mark J. Coakley said his office was working through more than 200 online requests and setting aside those it had accepted in case of later questions about an ex-offender’s status. They and other registrars across Virginia say the state wasn’t ready to carry out McAuliffe’s sweeping executive order on Friday that restored voting and other civil rights. “This is the time when government went too fast,” Coakley said. But McAuliffe administration officials said they warned from the beginning that it would take time to update online state databases to show the restoration of rights for so many people. “This is a massive administrative undertaking, but it is the right thing to do,” spokesman Brian Coy said.

Virginia: The felon vote: Will the restoration of felons’ voting rights in Virginia help the Democrats? | The Economist

Virginia’s governor, Terry McAuliffe, has a problem similar to one faced by Barack Obama: a Republican-controlled legislature delights in killing his proposals, especially those popular with Democrats. So Mr McAuliffe is doing as Mr Obama has done: implementing some of them by executive fiat. Mr McAuliffe’s latest is a doozy: a order made on April 22nd that restores the voting and civil rights of an estimated 206,000 non-violent and violent felons who have completed their penalties. Until Mr McAuliffe’s order, which came as a surprise, he had been considering the reinstatement of such rights as all Virginia governors have since the mid-1800s: on a case-by-case basis, making for an achingly slow and sometimes erratic process. Republicans, who have generally opposed making it easier to re-enfranchise felons stripped of their voting rights upon conviction, were quick to complain that by flooding the polls with new voters Mr McAuliffe was simply trying to tip this presidential battleground state to his good friend, Hillary Clinton. But while there is little doubt that Mr McAuliffe’s executive order has become a talking point for both political parties, it is not clear what impact it will have on registration and voting.

Virginia: State Supreme Court takes up legislative privilege case | Daily Press

The Supreme Court of Virginia has accepted a portion of an ongoing redistricting case, saying it will mull what correspondence legislators must release about their work drawing election maps, and what they may keep secret. The question is a key one before a lawsuit that targets nearly a dozen legislative districts over state constitutional concerns can move forward, but the high court’s decision could also set precedent when it comes to the release of legislative documents in court cases. Both sides – redistricting advocates connected to a group called OneVirginia2021 and state senators looking to protect emails under a legislative immunity clause in the Virginia Constitution – asked for the state Supreme Court to hear the matter. The broader case sits in City of Richmond Circuit Court. The high court’s decision, announced in a court order Wednesday, means the matter will skip the state Court of Appeals.

Virginia: McAuliffe rejects GOP leaders’ call for special session on voting rights for felons | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gov. Terry McAuliffe rejected Republican leaders’ call Tuesday for a special legislative session on the governor’s order restoring voting rights for 206,000 felons, saying the legislature has “no specific role” in the matter. The back-and-forth escalated a constitutional clash that could ultimately land in court as Republicans continue to seek ways to mount a legal challenge to Friday’s sweeping executive action. In a letter to the governor, House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, said McAuliffe, a Democrat, had shown a “flagrant disregard” for the Virginia Constitution. They also called on the governor to release a list of names of all people whose voting and civil rights were restored by Friday’s order, including details about their crimes.

Virginia: Why Virginia Disenfranchised Felons | The Atlantic

Last Friday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 people with previous felony convictions. It’s a momentous stroke in both scope and effect; with an eye towards the 2016 races, The New York Times estimated its electoral impact as “small but potentially decisive.” But the significance of McAuliffe’s efforts goes far beyond a single election. It instead marks an exorcism for one of Jim Crow’s last vestiges in Virginia’s state charter—and a reminder of how many of its legal aftereffects still linger today. Many of Jim Crow’s most pernicious aspects were swept away in a Second Reconstruction of sorts during the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. But those efforts had little effect on the criminal-justice system and its role in enforcing white supremacy, both in the South and beyond it. Disenfranchising people with criminal convictions was one of many vote-suppressing tools deployed in the state’s 1902 constitution, which was explicitly drafted and ratified to destroy black political power in the Old Dominion.

Virginia: GOP wants a say on restoring voting rights to 200,000 Virginia felons | The Washington Post

Virginia’s legislature should have a say in whether more than 200,000 ex-convicts get their voting rights restored ahead of the fall presidential election, Republican leaders said Tuesday as they called on Gov. Terry McAuliffe to convene a special General Assembly session. The GOP leaders were reacting to an executive order that McAuliffe (D) announced Friday, which instantly restored the voting rights of felons who have completed their sentences and been released from supervised probation or parole. McAuliffe and supporters said the move would advance civil rights and help reintegrate former convicts.

Virginia: Governor Restores Voting Rights to Thousands of Felons | Wall Street Journal

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed an order Friday to restore the voting rights of more than 200,000 felons, a sweeping move that could benefit his fellow Democrats in a critical swing state in the November presidential election. Under the order, convicted felons who have served their sentences and completed parole and probation will immediately regain the right to vote. The order applies to nonviolent and violent offenders, including people convicted of murder and rape. To cover individuals who complete their sentences in the future, Mr. McAuliffe directed the secretary of the commonwealth to prepare a similar order each month. “It is time to cast off Virginia’s troubled history of injustice and embrace an honest, clean process for restoring the rights of these men and women,” said Mr. McAuliffe.

Virginia: Lawmakers rack up big bill for taxpayers in redistricting lawsuit | The Washington Post

The Virginia Senate has spent $180,000 in taxpayer dollars on a court battle over whether state election maps illegally protect incumbents from primary challenges, according to documents obtained under the state’s public records law by an advocacy group. The lawsuit, funded by a redistricting reform group, argues that 11 state Senate districts violate the constitutional requirement that districts be “compact.” Instead, many legislative districts zigzag across Virginia in odd shapes in an effort to capture the precise mix of voters to give an incumbent lawmaker the best chance for reelection, critics say. As part of the lawsuit, some lawmakers are trying to keep secret emails about the 2011 redistricting process sought by lawyers for OneVirginia2021, a nonprofit which says it wants to take the politics out of the process of drawing district boundaries. The lawsuit has taken unexpected turns, raising questions about conflict of interest and what politicians can and cannot hide from judicial scrutiny.

Virginia: McAuliffe vetoes bill on voter registration requirements | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would require registrars to deny applications by people who leave out certain details, such as whether they are 18 years old. McAuliffe also vetoed the House version of legislation to extend coal tax credits, terming the credits ineffective. House Bill 298, sponsored by Del. Terry G. Kilgore, R-Scott, was identical to Senate Bill 44, which McAuliffe vetoed March 11, the last day of the General Assembly session. Del. Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania, sponsored House Bill 9, which sought to specify in greater detail information applicants are required to provide on the voter registration form.

Virginia: Supreme Court Skeptical of Virginia Congressman’s Claim of Right to Favorable Voting Map | Wall Street Journal

A Virginia congressman’s claim that he has a legal right to a district designed to re-elect him ran into skepticism at the Supreme Court on Monday. The court at an oral argument was examining a claim by Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.) that a lower court order voiding Virginia’s congressional map for violating the Voting Rights Act had in turn harmed his chance of re-election. Last year, a special three-judge federal court in Richmond, Va., found the state legislature’s congressional map was a racial gerrymander that illegally concentrated black voters into a single district, diminishing their political power elsewhere in the state. When the legislature failed to draw a new map addressing those findings, the Richmond-based court adopted a new map that swapped black and white voters in adjacent districts, increasing the Democratic population of Mr. Forbes’s congressional district to 60% from 48%.

Virginia: Republicans take redistricting fight to the Supreme Court | The Washington Post

The Supreme Court on Monday takes up a long-running political fight about whether Virginia lawmakers redrew the state’s congressional map to protect the commonwealth’s lone African American congressman — or to make sure he was not joined by a second. The court will consider whether Republican lawmakers packed African American voters into Democratic Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott’s district to comply with the Voting Rights Act or to make surrounding districts more hospitable to white candidates. A lower court ruled against the legislature last year, and the judges then created a second district designed for a black candidate. Voters in the state’s congressional primary go to the polls in June — about when the justices would seem likely to rule on this new plan. The case presents what has become familiar litigation over how states divide up their residents into congressional districts, which is essential to the country’s politics and crucial to political parties. But state lawmakers charged with the task compare it to walking a tightrope, or crossing a minefield, or preparing a meal for Goldilocks.

Virginia: Augusta County goes back to voting basics with paper ballots | American City & County

A county in Virginia is taking their voting system back in time by replacing their high-tech machines with paper ballots. Augusta County officials decided to make the switch from direct-recording electronic voting machines (DREs) to paper ballots due to concerns about machine malfunctions, according to The News Leader. “It is the touch screens you are familiar with, they were designed for 10 year use and we have reached that point,” Augusta County Board of Elections Secretary Tom Long told the paper. “We have experienced some glitches in our voting machines. Screens going blank for no reason in the last election.”

Virginia: Argument preview: Once again, the issue is race | Lyle Denniston/SCOTUSblog

More than halfway through the latest cycle of redrawing election districts after the 2010 census, the Supreme Court is still trying to sort out when those who draw the map rely too heavily on the race of the voters. It will be doing so in a case that has been to the Court once before, but the case may not even produce a decision this time on the key issue: the validity of a Virginia district for a single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Next Monday, March 21, the Court will hold one hour of oral argument on Wittman v. Personhubullah. The case reached the Court again in an appeal by all eight of Virginia’s current Republican members of the House (together with two others who no longer are in the state’s delegation but continue to be named). The lawmakers are seeking to defend the constitutionality of District 3 under the 2012 plan, which was struck down as a “racial gerrymander” in a split decision by a three-judge federal district court last June. Actually, that lower court has twice nullified the 2012 plan for District 3. Then, when the legislature last year could not agree on a replacement, the court fashioned a new one on its own. Adding to the strangeness of this case, the court-drawn map is the one that will be used in this year’s June 14 primary and November 8 general elections in Virginia, under an order by the Supreme Court last month.

Virginia: Trial on voter ID law wraps up | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Social scientists testified for the defense Wednesday in the last day of a trial over the state’s voter identification law, attesting that they could not definitively say that the law was intended to blunt the influence of minority voters. A lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party of Virginia and two voters contends that the law that went into effect in 2013 was enacted by the Republican-controlled state legislature to suppress votes from minorities and youth who are more likely than other voters to support Democrats and tend to be less likely to have a valid photo ID. After the last witness in the more than weeklong trial in Richmond finished testifying Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson directed lawyers for the plaintiffs and the defendants — the Virginia State Board of Elections, the Virginia Department of Elections and officials from those offices — to file memorandums in lieu of making closing arguments. The memos are due March 25 and the rebuttals a week after.

Virginia: GOP vote surge in Northern Virginia definitely included some Democrats | The Washington Post

Did Democratic “crossover” voters in Virginia help fuel the state’s extraordinary surge in Republican voting on Super Tuesday? More than twice as many GOP ballots were cast on Tuesday than had been submitted in the 2008 presidential primary. Part of the increase was undoubtedly because of the tumultuous nature of this year’s Republican primary, and the fact that there are still many candidates jostling for votes. But interviews at the polls and posts on social media showed that at least a slice of those voters were people who planned to vote Democratic in the fall, but took advantage of Virginia’s open-primary law to try to impact the Republican race. “Lifelong Democrat here and I cast my first vote for a Republican yesterday in the VA primary,” Liz Odar, an Arlington millennial, said in an email. “I decided my vote was better used as a vote against Trump.”

Virginia: State election official says he’s unaware of any voter impersonation in past 20 years | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections, one of the defendants in a lawsuit challenging the state’s photo voter ID law, testified Friday that he was not aware of any case of voter impersonation in Virginia over the past 20 years. Edgardo Cortés also said on cross-examination Friday, the fifth day of the trial before U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson in Richmond, that he believes the only form of voter fraud requiring photo voter identification might prevent would be someone trying to impersonate someone else.
The law took effect in 2014, and Cortés acknowledged there was some confusion and mistakes made by local election officials that year and in 2015. He expects to see more problems this year because it is a presidential election and turnout in the state could be 70 to 80 percent, compared with the 20 percent who might vote in an off-year.

Virginia: Voter ID law challenged in federal trial | Reuters

A Virginia law requiring voters to show photo identification went on trial in federal court on Monday, challenged by Democratic Party activists who allege it throws up barriers to voting by minorities and the poor. Lawyers defending the 2013 Virginia law said it prevented voter fraud. The trial in U.S. District Court is one of several voting rights legal battles as Democrats and Republicans square off before November’s presidential and congressional elections. The Democratic Party of Virginia and two party activists are suing the Virginia State Board of Elections and want Judge Henry Hudson to strike down the law.

Virginia: Plaintiffs in voter ID case may wrap up case Friday | Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Democratic Party of Virginia and two other plaintiffs may wrap up their case today challenging Virginia’s 2013 law requiring photo voter identification as an attempt to curb minority voting.
Allan J. Lichtman, a history professor at American University and author of “White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement,” testified Thursday that he concludes after study that the intent of the Virginia law was discriminatory. Among other things, Lichtman said the white share of the voting electorate in the state steadily declined in the 10 years leading up to the 2012 election when Democrats, for the first time since 1948, won consecutive presidential elections in Virginia. The Republican base in Virginia is heavily white, while the Democrats count heavily on African-Americans and other minorities and things are trending against the Republicans, said Lichtman, who has testified in more than 80 voting rights cases, at times for Republicans. “It’s race — this is the most fundamental divide politically. That’s what really matters between Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

Virginia: Expert witness testifies that there is no justification for Va. photo ID law | Richmond Times-Dispatch

An expert witness testified Wednesday in a suit challenging Virginia’s photo ID law that there is no evidence voter fraud is a rational justification for such a requirement in Virginia or any other state. Lorraine C. Minnite, author of “The Myth of Voter Fraud” and co-author of “Keeping Down the Black Vote: Race and the Demobilization of American Voters,” said the sort of fraud that photo ID is meant to prevent is so uncommon there is a concern it would cause more legitimate ballots to be lost than fraudulent ballots cast. “If there is no voter fraud, the question is, what is this all about? … Why are the two parties fighting so intensely?” asked Minnite, a witness for the plaintiffs, including the Democratic Party of Virginia. Minnite contends parties can win by expanding their own base or by decreasing the other party’s. “It goes to the logic and the strategy of trying to win elections,” she said.

Virginia: Trial begins on lawsuit challenging Virginia voter ID law | Richmond Times-Dispatch

A 69-year-old black woman who grew up in a small, segregated city wept on the witness stand Monday as she testified about the trouble she had voting in 2014 because she could not comply with Virginia’s voter identification law. Josephine Okiakpe said she plucked several forms of ID from her purse — birth certificate, Social Security card, voter registration card, even a bank statement — and handed them over to workers at her Woodbridge polling place. The only things she had with her picture on them were her North Carolina driver’s license and an expired Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles ID card. “They wouldn’t take any of that,” said Okiakpe, who earlier had described attending an all-black public school in Clinton, N.C., that got hand-me-down books when the white schools got new ones.

Virginia: Board of Elections Asks Court To Ignore Pre-1965 Discrimination In Voting Rights Case | TPM

Virginia’s State Board of Elections is asking the court weighing a voting rights case being brought in the state to exclude any evidence of the state’s history of racial discrimination. The board filed a motion Monday to “exclude expert testimony and other evidence of Virginia’s history of racial discrimination,” particularly anything that happened before 1965, when the federal Voting Rights Act was passed. “No one denies Virginia’s troubling history of racial discrimination nor that Virginia was once part of the Confederacy,” the motion said. “However, Virginia’s history as a former Confederate state is simply not relevant to the issue this Court is asked to decide.” The state’s motion focuses on the anticipated testimony of John Douglas Smith, the author of “Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia.” It argues that his testimony should not be admitted because much of his initial report covers Virginia’s pre-1965 history.

Virginia: Supreme Court rejects GOP petition to block new congressional lines | Washington Post

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a request from Republican members of Congress to put on hold an election map that gives Democrats a chance to pick up a seat in this year’s election. The ruling is the latest in a series of decisions triggered last year by a panel of federal judges who said Virginia’s map illegally packed African American voters into one district at the expense of their influence elsewhere. Last month, the judges sought to change that by imposing a map that increases the number of African American voters, who reliably vote for Democrats, in a district that stretches from Richmond to Norfolk. It is represented by Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R).