In Virginia, my home state, a felony conviction results in an automatic loss of voting rights. Previous Virginia governors used executive actions to automatically restore the right to vote to thousands of formerly convicted citizens. Rolling back years of progress, Gov. Glenn Youngkin recently reversed these advancements, now requiring convicted individuals to directly petition the governor to regain this right.

On Dec. 13, a judge rejected the Virginia NAACP’s attempt to access a database the governor uses to reinstate these voting rights. The ongoing lack of transparency highlights a deeper problem with the governor’s approach: a discretionary and opaque restoration process that is susceptible to discrimination. But the gubernatorial strategy is not novel, it is part of a statewide criminal disenfranchisement strategy rooted in the Jim Crow era. There’s an urgent need for a constitutional amendment in the commonwealth to automatically restore voting rights of formerly incarcerated people.

The governor’s restoration process is shrouded in secrecy and susceptible to discrimination. The “restoration of rights” application requests details about incarceration, fines, fees and restitution, but omits criteria used by the governor in his decision-making. An individual’s ability to vote could be capriciously denied with no justification, depending solely on Youngkin’s say-so.

Read more at The Virginian Pilot