Federal Judge Rules Virginia’s Felony Voting Ban Violated Law

The ruling blocks Virginia from denying voting rights for most felony convictions and comes as lawmakers advance a separate amendment for automatic restoration.

A voter walks into the polling station at the Spanish Wells Golf Club to vote in the Republican primary in Hilton Head Island, S.C., on Feb. 20, 2016. Win McNamee/Getty Images

A federal judge ruled on Jan. 22 that Virginia’s lifetime voting ban for people convicted of felonies violates a federal law that governed the state’s return to the Union after the Civil War, a decision that could restore voting rights to hundreds of thousands of Virginians.

In a class-action case brought by Tati Abu King and Toni Heath Johnson, U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. granted class certification and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on summary judgment.

King lost his voting rights after a 2018 conviction for possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, the opinion said.

Johnson briefly regained the right to vote in 2021 after a governor restored her right to vote, but she lost it again that year after felony convictions for drug offenses—including possession with intent to distribute and distribution—and a related child-neglect conviction tied to a teen being present near the substances, according to the opinion.

The judge in his opinion said Virginia cannot disenfranchise citizens except “as a punishment for such crimes as are now felonies at common law,” quoting the Virginia Readmission Act of 1870. The ruling means that the state cannot bar people from voting for felonies that did not exist under common law in 1870 and limits which convictions can be used to deny voting rights under the state constitution.

In a separate injunction order issued the same day, the court barred state election officials from enforcing the felony disenfranchisement provision against Virginians unless they have been convicted of a felony that qualifies as a common-law felony under the court’s ruling, listing offenses including arson, burglary, larceny, manslaughter, mayhem, murder, rape, robbery, sodomy, and related offenses such as escape and rescue.

The injunction order noted the plaintiffs estimate that the challenged provision disenfranchises more than 300,000 people. The court also cited data from The Sentencing Project estimating that 264,292 people were banned from voting in Virginia, with black residents accounting for 46 percent of that total, and nearly 10 percent of voting-age black Virginians unable to vote.

The lawsuit was filed in 2023 and originally named several state officials. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit later dismissed Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Coles James from the case, leaving claims to proceed against state election officials with enforcement authority, including State Board of Elections members and the elections commissioner. The opinion also noted the defendants appealed an earlier decision to the Supreme Court, which denied certiorari.

State election officials had asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying the plaintiffs could not use this lawsuit to enforce the Virginia Readmission Act against Virginia’s elections system. They also argued that allowing private citizens to enforce the act would violate constitutional limits on federal power over states and that the law’s language is too unclear to serve as a workable rule for which felony convictions can lead to disenfranchisement.

The ruling comes as Virginia lawmakers pursue a separate change to the state constitution. A proposed constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 2, would state that voting is a “fundamental right” and would automatically restore voting rights to people convicted of a felony once they are released from incarceration, “without further action required,” replacing the current system that requires gubernatorial rights restoration. The measure passed the House 65–33 on Jan. 14 and passed the Senate on Jan. 16.

The Epoch Times reached out to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger for comment on the ruling and whether she supports the constitutional amendment moving through the state legislature, but did not hear back prior to publication.

The Epoch Times did not hear back from the defense attorney Charles Cooper regarding the judge’s ruling before publication.

Matthew Vadum contributed to this report.