By Ithar M. Hassan
Voting Rights Project Legal Intern — Summer 2025
On June 23, 2025, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Virginia’s appeal that sought to stop a legal challenge to the state’s policy of banning people with felony convictions from voting unless the governor restores their rights. The case will now be allowed to move forward.
While there are several states that make it difficult for people with felony convictions to have their voting rights restored, Virginia is one of just a few states whose constitution permanently disenfranchises all citizens with past felony convictions, with rights restoration subject only to the Governor’s whim. Beginning in 2013, governors from both major parties have exercised their executive powers, taking actions to restore voting rights to over 100,000 individuals. But in 2023, Governor Glenn Youngkin reversed these actions, and the number of individuals whose voting rights were restored dropped dramatically.
Resurrecting Reconstruction-Era Protections
In response to Youngkin’s reversal, several voting rights groups filed litigation. You can read more about Fair Elections Center’s challenge here, which we have petitioned to be heard en banc by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
In an unrelated suit, Virginians Tati King and Toni Johnson, who were disenfranchised due to their past felony convictions, filed a class action challenging the Virginia Constitution’s disenfranchisement provision. The plaintiffs argued that their disenfranchisement violated an 1870 federal law called the Virginia Readmission Act.
The law harkens back to Virginia’s effort to restore its congressional representation during the Reconstruction period. In an attempt to prevent Virginia from discriminating and disenfranchising newly freed Black Americans, the Virginia Readmission Act prohibits the state’s constitution from being “amended or changed to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the right to vote, except as a punishment for such crimes as are now felonies at common law.”
When the Act was passed in 1870, “felonies at common law” only included murder, manslaughter, arson, burglary, robbery, rape sodomy, mayhem, and larceny. Currently, the Virginia Constitution disenfranchises all people with felony convictions, including criminal violations, such as drug-related offenses, not classified in 1870 as “felonies at common law.” The plaintiffs contend that their disenfranchisement for more recently enacted felonies violates this federal law.
The plaintiffs’ claims survived a motion to dismiss, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has rejected Virginia’s sovereign immunity defense. By allowing the case to proceed, the Supreme Court’s decision leaves open the door to Readmission Act claims, potentially remaking the legal landscape surrounding voter disenfranchisement laws.
From Historical Artifact to Modern Mandate
The litigators behind the class action have characterized it as “first-of-its-kind.” Grounded in historical legal theory, the case could have significant implications for similarly situated states that were readmitted under the same circumstances. Former Confederate states like Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama could potentially see challenges to their own voter disenfranchisement laws modeled after the Virginia case. Reacting to this litigation, state legislators may be inclined to reform their disenfranchisement laws by narrowing the categories of crimes that lead to a loss of voting rights.
If successful, the case could have an overdue uplifting impact on African American communities who have historically borne the burden of such policies. According to The Sentencing Project, African Americans are disproportionately affected by Virginia’s disenfranchisement laws, accounting for 12% of all individuals who have lost their voting rights in the state.
These policies have become modern day barriers to civic participation for minority communities, silencing thousands of people who live and work in those communities, and diluting their overall political influence. A ruling that curtails Virginia‘s longstanding policy could help reverse the state’s perverse legacy of racially motivated voter suppression, ensuring that more Black Virginians can make their voices heard.
In the meantime, Virginia voters should turn their attention to the proposed Virginia state constitutional amendment that seeks to automatically restore the right to vote to individuals convicted of felonies upon completion of their terms of incarceration without additional paperwork or obstacles. This amendment is currently moving through the state legislature, and, if passed for a second consecutive time by the legislature in 2026, will go to the ballot in November 2026 so voters can end this arbitrary and discriminatory restoration system once and for all.