RICHMOND, Va. – Today multiple Virginia organizations announced they are collectively forming the Virginia Right to Vote Coalition to engage in a multi-year effort to enshrine automatic restoration of rights into Virginia’s constitution.
Comprised of multiple state-based and national organizations, the Right to Vote Coalition represents voting rights, criminal legal reform, as well as directly-impacted Virginians, educational institutions, and re-entry organizations. The coalition’s goal is to amend Virginia’s constitution to include a clear, consistent and fair re-enfranchisement rule for Virginia citizens by 2026.
Like the majority of Virginians, coalition members believe all qualified citizens should have access to the ballot, including those who have served their time for felony convictions and people with disabilities. Representative democracy depends on all of us being represented at the ballot box.
But Virginia is an outlier: the Commonwealth is the only state in the nation that permanently and automatically bans anyone with a felony conviction from voting, and then requires them to individually petition the governor to get their voting rights restored.
The constitutional amendment this coalition is advancing would align Virginia with the rest of the country and eliminate the legacy of the Confederacy that is reflected in Virginia’s current disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions. Nationally, 1 in 19 eligible Black voters is disenfranchised – in Virginia, 1 in 10 Black adults are disenfranchised. That’s more than twice as high a rate as the rest of the country, and one of the highest rates in the whole nation.
A voting rights constitutional amendment will put the right to vote out of reach of individual governors, parties, or partisan actors by removing the governor’s right to handpick his voters through voting rights restoration. The amendment will guarantee that no matter who is in office, all citizens living in their communities have access to the ballot box, making the right to vote exactly what it should be: nonpartisan.
A voting rights constitutional amendment will likewise protect Virginians with disabilities, who currently lose their civil rights, including the right to vote, if they are placed in the care of a plenary (full) guardian. To get it back, people with disabilities commonly have to prove to Virginian officials that they want to vote by answering a long, subjective series of questions no one else has to answer.
No one should permanently lose their right to vote. The Right to Vote Coalition is committed to making good on Virginia’s promise to people with felony convictions that serving your time means earning a second chance, including the right to vote, and to making sure that people with disabilities don’t face barriers that other voters don’t have to face. This coalition will work to correct Virginia’s current, flawed voting rights landscape by putting a voting rights constitutional amendment on the ballot for Virginians to vote on at the soonest possible opportunity: November 2026.
“Felony disenfranchisement has stained Virginia’s constitution for well over a century. There needs to be a process that is clear, consistent and transparent for every individual to regain their voting rights that does not rest in the hands of one individual governor. Every eligible individual should be able to access the right to vote in order to participate in democracy that affects every aspect of their lives.” said Sheba Williams, Founder and Executive Director of Nolef Turns Inc.
Virginia Right to Vote Coalition
ACLU of Virginia
Fair Elections Center
Nolef Turns Inc.
Progress Virginia
Virginia Civic Engagement Table (VCET)
Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP)
Virginia League of Conservation Voters
Virginia League of Women Voters
Virginia Organizing
Virginia NAACP
UpVote Virginia
