The state’s voting law is incorporated into law by a governor whose career nearly derailed in 2019 due to a blackface scandal. Since then, Mr. Northam has spearheaded a number of racial justice initiatives in the state and has enjoyed wide approval ratings. He said Wednesday that Virginia law should become a model for the nation.
“At a time when voting rights in our country are under attack, Virginia is expanding access to the ballot box without restricting it,” said Northam. “Our Commonwealth is creating a model for how states can provide comprehensive voter protection that strengthens democracy and the integrity of our elections.”
Virginia’s move away from its longstanding voting restrictions began in 2016 when Governor Terry McAuliffe returned the vote to 206,000 offenders in the state over objections from the Republican-led General Assembly and the State Supreme Court. After the court ruled that Mr. McAuliffe had no authority to restore offenders en masse, but could do so on a case-by-case basis, the court sent 206,000 individual voting restoration letters to offenders, mailed envelopes with a Virginia voter application form and one self-addressed stamped envelope.
“For me it was a moral issue of civil rights, and this was a racist Jim Crow bill that needed to be eliminated,” McAuliffe said on Wednesday.
After the Democrats took full control of the state government last year, one of the first bills they passed created one of the longest primaries in the country – a 45-day window for apologetic absentee ballot, in which people vote without remote voting may have to provide a justification. More than 2.8 million Virginians voted at the start of the 2020 election, almost five times as many as in 2016.
“My ancestors fought hard for this,” said Charniele Herring, author of the early voting bill that became the first black majority leader in the Virginia House of Representatives last year. “My parents had to have this fight in the 1960s and this is the time to end this fight and protect everyone’s right to vote, regardless of political affiliation.”
All Republican lawmakers opposed the Virginia Voting Rights Act, arguing that it would flood local election officials with lawsuits and make routine voting changes difficult. Glenn Davis, a Virginia Beach Republican delegate running for lieutenant governor, said it was “just human” that Democratic efforts to simplify voting, like getting rid of Virginia’s photo ID, would lead to more fraud.
