Readers React: Virginia governor strikes a blow for civil rights in allowing ex-felons to vote

To the editor: Criticizing Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s motivation for restoring voting rights to 200,000 ex-felons as political and cynical is completely off base and reveals ignorance about Virginia’s election system. (“Restoring voting rights to Virginia ex-felons is a welcome move – but for a whiff of partisan politics,” editorial, April 26)

Virginia holds state elections in odd years. If McAuliffe was acting out of partisanship instead of principle, he would have restored voting rights en masse before the 2015 state legislative elections, during which he was barnstorming the Commonwealth trying to win a legislative majority to support his agenda.

Although these newly enfranchised voters could potentially affect this year’s presidential race, they would have had a far greater effect on lower-turnout legislative races in 2015.

In a state where a governor can serve only one term and which holds either state-level or federal elections every year, there’s never a time when restoration of voting rights to African Americans would not open a Democratic governor to criticism. Fortunately, McAuliffe did not let predictable criticism stop him from making this historic dent in a vestige of Jim Crow.

David Englin, Los Angeles

The writer, a Democrat, was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 2006-12.

To the editor: McAuliffe says that the rights and privileges of full citizenship ought to be returned when a felon’s term is completed.

Perhaps he’s right. Does that mean a released killer will be free to own a gun?

Richard Stegemeier, Anaheim

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To the editor: Don’t all Americans deserve the right to vote?

African Americans have been systematically disenfranchised by, among other things, a racist criminal justice system that pursues, indicts, prosecutes, plea-bargains and gives harsher sentences to black Americans. With the gutting of the pre-clearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court, GOP-controlled states are further implementing voter suppression and disenfranchisement measures that again overwhelmingly affect African Americans.

You write that McAuliffe is engaged in some kind of partisan tit-for-tat. How about let’s start treating all of our citizens like full citizens in this country?

We are almost a century and a half past when this should have been accomplished, so no, this isn’t a partisan action, this is a civil rights action. And it should be done across the country.

Alice P. Neuhauser, Manhattan Beach

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