Restoring felons' voting rights crosses partisan lines (a bit) in Virginia

In Virginia, an attempt supported by Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell to automatically restore voting rights to felons ran into trouble last week:

On Monday, a Republican-controlled House panel killed House bills aimed at restoring voter rights to non-violent felons. But the issue is not dead because similar measures are pending in the Senate. Del. Robert B. Bell (R-Charlottesville) is among those who thinks felons should still have to apply to the governor to get their voting rights restored.

'I think you have some felons who have turned their lives around and should be eligible to vote, and others who are not sorry at all and have every intention to commit crimes again and that's not someone I think should be voting,' Bell said.

In Maine and Vermont, convicted felons may vote absentee while they are incarcerated. In Florida and Virginia, on the other hand, felons can lose their voting rights forever and must appeal for a clemency ruling from the governor to get back their franchise. The governors can ignore them.

Nationwide, according to The Sentencing Project, 5.85 million Americans are barred from voting because of felony convictions. Because of disparities in the criminal-justice system about who gets arrested, tried and convicted, one in 13 African Americans is thus disenfranchised. Most states have some form of automatic restoration after felons serve their sentence or their plus parole time. But, depending on circumstances, 12 states, mostly in the West and South, can disenfranchise felons forever if they choose to do so.

Because minorities are incarcerated and disenfranchised in proportions far beyond the ratio of their numbers compared with the overall population, it is often argued that the laws taking away felons' voting rights are racially discriminatory. That has an impact not only on the individuals convicted but also on political power.

In an article last year in the University of Richmond Law Review about felony disenfranchisement in Virginia, Dori Elizabeth Martin writes:

Felony disenfranchisement profoundly impacts the political opportunity available to minority communities. Using a procedure called the 'usual residence rule,' the Census Bureau counts prisoners as residents of the district in which they are incarcerated.
The result is often artificially inflated population totals in rural, majority white communities at the expense of the (largely minority) communities the inmates  ordinarily  would call home.

Of course, government funding and political representation are both functions of population, as determined by the Census, so the inmates quite literally increase the value of prison communities without reaping any of the benefits, while leaving their families and neighbors underrepresented. Critics of this system have compared its practical effects to the 'Three-Fifths' Compromise in the original United States Constitution, which gave slaveowning states more political influence by including slaves in the population tallies for determining congressional representation.

The effects of this type of vote dilution could be particularly prominent in a state like Virginia, where criminal voting bans are not rescinded automatically. As mored (disproportionately minority) voters become disenfranchised, and comparatively few rejoin
the political process, the distribution of political power becomes increasingly disparate.

In Virginia currently, felons must wait for at least two years and as long as seven, before even applying to get their voting rights restored. As noted, the governor is under no obligation to approve an application. To his credit, Gov. McDonnell thinks that's a bad approach.

Virginia Assembly Del. Rosalyn R. Dance, a Democrat, says the current process for applying for restoration of voting rights is complicated. Consequently, few felons actually make the effort. Dance and Democratic Sen. A. Donald McEachin want McDonnell to name his voting-rights restoration bill for former senator Yvonne B. Miller. She died last year after championing the restoration cause for two decades.

This ought to be a matter of simple justice. Being convicted of felony shoplifting'$200 or more worth of merchandise'in Virginia may not result in prison time. But it costs the felon his or her voting rights for at least two years and far longer if the governor decides not to restore those rights. The subjectiveness of such a system covering thousands of people is an affront to justice.