A coalition of civil rights organizations filed a federal lawsuit Monday against a Virginia law that automatically stripped convicted criminals of their voting privileges immediately after the Civil War.
The lawsuit was launched on Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia, the voting rights advocacy group Protect Democracy, and the legal firm WilmerHale against Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and other state officials.
The complaint claims that the state breached a 150-year-old law governing Virginia’s readmission to the Union after the Civil War.
“Some of the most pernicious attempts to suppress the voting rights of Black citizens originated in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but they have consequences that persist to this day,” Vishal Agraharkar, ACLU of Virginia senior supervising attorney, said in a statement.
“Our constitution has enabled mass disenfranchisement through decades of over-criminalization, and it turns out that was illegal.”
The alliance is made up of three people: Melvin Wingate, Tati Abu King, and Toni Heath Johnson, as well as Bridging the Gap, an organization that helps people who have been incarcerated in the past.
Virginia is one of three states where the constitution automatically disenfranchises all felons until the governor restores their ability to vote, something felons in Virginia must do individually.
“As a minister, I believe in second chances, and voting would allow me to fully participate in my community,” Wingate said in a statement. “However, I have been unable to vote in five presidential elections, six midterm elections, and five Virginia gubernatorial elections since my release in 2001.”
According to the ACLU, the Virginia Readmission Act is at the heart of the complaint because it prohibits Virginia’s constitution from being “amended or changed to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the right to vote, except as a punishment for such crimes as are now felonies at common law.” Murder, arson, burglary, and rape were among the offenses charged at the time.
You can see the post shared by the ACLU of Virginia Twitter account. You can also find more information about Lawsuit Challenges Virginia’s Voting Rights Stripped From Felons by reading the below tweet:-
BREAKING: We filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against VA’s felony disenfranchisement scheme.
B/c VA disenfranchises all people with felony convictions, it violates a Reconstruction-era law setting the terms for VA to regain representation to Congress after the Civil War.🧵
— ACLU of Virginia (@ACLUVA) June 26, 2023
A few years later, the law was revised to disenfranchise persons for a broader range of offenses, which the plaintiffs claim violates the Virginia Readmission Act.
“The case filed today alleges that by disenfranchising all people with felony convictions, Virginia’s constitution violates a Reconstruction-era law called the Virginia Readmission Act, one of several federal Readmission Acts that established the terms under which former Confederate states could regain representation in Congress,” WilmerHale partner Brittany Amadi said in a statement.
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