Virginia: GOP sues to strip new voting rights from 206,000 Virginia felons | The Washington Post
Leaders of Virginia’s House and Senate went straight to the state’s highest court on Monday in a bid to reverse Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s sweeping order to restore voting rights to 206,000 felons. Skipping lower courts, they filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court of Virginia, contending that Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, exceeded his authority in April when he restored voting rights to felons en masse instead of individually. The lawsuit — bankrolled by private donations and political funds, Republicans noted, not taxpayer funds — presents a complex constitutional question with the urgency of presidential election-year politics. Republicans are seeking an expedited review so that reinstated ex-cons who have registered to vote can be stripped from the rolls ahead of November. Prior Virginia governors have taken up the cause of restoring felons’ voting rights, but none with anything close to Mr. McAuliffe’s scale and speed.