WaPo: “If only that sentiment prevailed in the executive mansion. Instead, Mr. Youngkin has embarked on a policy that appears to treat voting not as an urgent and fundamental right but rather as a perk that the state government can leave in bureaucratic limbo. We say “appears” here because the administration has passed up opportunity after opportunity to detail its policy, leaving the public unsure of the criteria on which their applications are judged.
Whatever the particulars of the current policy, they appear to upend more than a decade of bipartisan progress in rights restoration in Virginia. As governor, Robert F. McDonnell (R), who served from 2010 to 2014, streamlined the process and made whole about 8,000 people. Successors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, both Democrats, went further, enfranchising about 300,000. The impressive number of restorations under his leadership, Mr. McAuliffe claimed, was his “proudest achievement.”
As for Mr. Youngkin’s numbers? They’ve “fallen off a cliff,” as state Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) put it in an email to commonwealth Secretary Kay Coles James. After his first several months in office last year, Mr. Youngkin issued a news release touting the restoration of rights to more than 3,400 Virginians — an outcome that suggested continuity with previous administrations. Over a five-month span (from May through October), however, the governor promulgated a mere 800 restorations.”