Thousands of Virginia felons who had their voting rights restored have had them stripped away again and the back and forth is creating quite a mess for state registrars. In April, Democratic Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe restored the voting rights of all of Virginia’s formerly convicted felons. On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled the order unconstitutional. That puts thousands of felons and registrars in limbo. “There’s general confusion about how this is going to be handled,” said Anne Hemenway the president of the city of Charlottesville Board of Elections. Of the 200,000 felons of what their voting rights restored, 13,000 already registered to vote. “There’s never been a situation where this many have been challenged at the same time this close to an election too,” said Hemenway.
Those felons must be removed from voter rolls by August 25.
Albemarle County Registrar Jake Washburne will have to de-register an estimated 60 to 70 voters, but he isn’t sure how to do that.
“We have gotten advice from the Department of Elections, from the commissioner, to just sit tight for a few days while they read through the order and try to give us some guidance so that the carrying out of the court’s order will be uniform across the state,” said Washburne.
Full Article: Va. Supreme Court Decision Creating Trouble for Voting Registrar – NBC29 WVIR Charlottesville, VA News, Sports and Weather.