Stan Craddock was released from prison eight years ago and still has not had his voting rights restored.
After taking office on Jan. 15, 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin continued a policy of his predecessors by restoring voting rights to 3,496 Virginians formerly incarcerated for felonies.
Then, on May 20, 2022, he halted the practice, miring the voter restoration process for former felons in confusion and secrecy.
Only three states permanently disenfranchise everyone with past felony convictions from civil rights including serving on a jury or being a notary, but Virginia is the only state with a lifelong prohibition barring those convicted of a felony from voting. And while the Constitution of Virginia grants the governor unilateral authority to restore voting rights, Youngkin is the first to exercise seemingly arbitrary and opaque discretion to grant or deny individual applications, and on a timeline that — according to an email from Youngkin Freedom of Information Act officer Denise Burch — remains “protected by executive privilege.”
“Against the backdrop of the Commonwealth’s deplorable history of state officials using the power of their offices to prevent Black Virginians from voting,” Virginia NAACP President Robert N. Barnette, Jr., said in a July 13 statement, “the Virginia NAACP is concerned that the governor’s new process restores voting rights to some and not others without justification or explanation.”
Justice Forward VA reports that, despite only accounting for 19% of the state population, Black people comprise 55% of the prison system.
Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Cole James denies that race, religion or ethnicity played a role in the restoration process, saying that “Virginians trust the governor and his administration to consider each person individually and take into consideration the unique elements of each situation, practicing grace for those who need it and ensuring public safety for our community and families.”
In a July 18 letter to the NAACP, James clarified that the governor will be “less likely to quickly restore the voting rights of anyone who used a firearm in the commission of a crime, and that, generally speaking, but not always, he will work to restore the voting rights of those who committed nonviolent crimes.”
For decades, advocates have worked tirelessly in urging Virginia governors to restore voting rights to disenfranchised former felons. In 2013, Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell automated restoration for those who had completed their sentences and paid any fines, fees and restitution for nonviolent convictions, and ended a burdensome two-year waiting period.
In April 2014, Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe automatically restored voting rights en masse to about 206,000 former offenders before tough-on-crime Republicans took him to the Virginia Supreme Court, which ruled, 4-3, that he could only restore rights individually. Undaunted, McAuliffe signed off on approximately 173,000 individual cases.
Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam made the process fully automatic, ditching the requirement that felons complete parole. He restored rights to about 126,000 people.
On April 6, the Washington, D.C.- based Fair Elections Center filed a lawsuit against Youngkin and James on behalf of Nolef Turns Inc., a Richmond-based nonprofit that helps those with felony convictions reintegrate into society. The suit challenges Youngkin’s resurrection of “an unconstitutionally arbitrary system for restoring voting rights to people with felony convictions.”
Sheba Williams, executive director of Nolef Turns Inc.
“It’s time to correct the wrongs of our 1902 constitution and leave the power to one succinct process that cannot be modified by a single person’s emotions in the moment,” Nolef Turns Executive Director Sheba Williams said at an April 11 roundtable discussion of the matter hosted by Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, who worked to restore rights as secretary of the commonwealth under McAuliffe.
Another lawsuit filed at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in June by the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy and the Virginia chapter of the ACLU on behalf of three former felons contends that the commonwealth violates the Readmission Act, an 1870 federal law that set the terms of Virginia’s readmission to Congress after the Civil War.
“I have been out of prison for eight years, and I have gotten none of my rights back,” explains Stan Craddock, who served 20 years for robbery. “All I got was a letter with a lot of yadda-yadda that said I have no rights restored. I can’t vote, I can’t even protect myself. We serve our time, we should get our rights back.”
Smyth County resident Toni Heath Johnson, who served time for a felony drug conviction, told Cardinal News that, in June, James’ office denied her application without citing a reason. She is one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit.
At a July 18 press conference, the NAACP called for the governor to set clear and publicly available criteria for his rights restoration decisions, communicate effectively with applicants about the process and, finally, ensure that applications are processed fairly and promptly. They also asked that the governor publicly release the number of applications received, granted or denied.
James has reported that added staffing has reduced the backlog and that all completed applications submitted through April 30, 2023, have been acted on. She did not cite specific numbers of grants or denials.
