Federal judge upholds ruling that certain ex-felons should not automatically lose voting rights
On Monday, a federal court reaffirmed a January ruling that found that Virginia’s current practice of disenfranchising all people with felony convictions violates post-Civil War laws that required former Confederate states to guarantee voting rights for newly emancipated Black residents.
The series of laws, called the Readmission Acts, also barred states from constitutionally disenfranchising people other than those convicted of crimes that were considered common law at the time. Under current law, all ex-felons’ voting rights are automatically revoked and formerly incarcerated people must petition the governor to have them restored.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia is the plaintiff in the case, which was originally filed in 2023 and last heard in January. Attorney General Jay Jones then filed a motion that sought to modify a list of applicable felonies under the Readmission Acts, which blocked states from automatically and permanently stripping the voting rights of people convicted of crimes besides murder, manslaughter, arson, burglary, robbery, sodomy, mayhem and larceny.
When the suit returned to courts on March 9, the ACLU floated the possibility of allowing incarcerated people the ability to vote, so long as their felonies were not common law.
https://virginiamercury.com/2026/03/11/federal-judge-upholds-ruling-that-certain-ex-felons-should-not-automatically-lose-voting-rights/