RICHMOND, Va. — More than 260,000 justice-impacted Virginians are barred from voting in this month’s upcoming special election, according to The Sentencing Project, underscoring continuing disparities in the state’s felony disenfranchisement policies.
A separate report by The Sentencing Project finds that Virginia has the “fourth-highest disenfranchised population in the nation, behind only Florida, Texas, and Tennessee.” The overwhelming majority of disenfranchised Virginians are not incarcerated but are living in the community.
The Sentencing Project emphasizes that “felony disenfranchisement inflicts unequal weight on Black Virginians, largely due to disparities in the state’s criminal legal system.” It further explains that “Black Virginians constitute nearly 52% of the prison population, yet only make up 18% of the state’s population.”
Black Virginians are also incarcerated at nearly four times the rate of white Virginians, reflecting a deeply entrenched racial injustice in the commonwealth.
On April 21, “Virginians will vote in a special election to determine whether the General Assembly can temporarily adopt new congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections,” according to The Sentencing Project.
While the decision will shape political representation across the commonwealth, hundreds of thousands of justice-impacted Virginians, about 10% of whom are Black, will be unable to vote, according to the report.
Senior Director of Advocacy for The Sentencing Project Nicole D. Porter argued that these felony voting bans systemically “lock out” Black and Brown Virginians, excluding them from democratic participation.
Porter continued, “By denying people with felony convictions a voice in the policies that shape our communities and futures, the Commonwealth is deliberately excluding entire communities from our democracy and impeding successful reentry for thousands of returning citizens.”
“Civic participation strengthens public safety, supports reentry, and reduces recidivism,” Porter emphasized. “Denying the vote does not protect democracy — it weakens it.”
Founder and Executive Director of Nolef Turns Inc. and co-lead of the Virginia Right to Vote Coalition Sheba Williams asserted that “the voices of justice-impacted Virginians will not be heard in this election but its impact will be felt throughout the Commonwealth.”
Williams continued, “Political representation is power … and all Virginians should be able to participate in shaping their futures.”
“Virginians will vote on a constitutional amendment that would automatically restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated citizens” later this year.
According to The Sentencing Project, “this would restore voting rights to nearly 232,000 impacted people, marking one of the most significant expansions of democratic access in the state’s history.”
The Sentencing Project explains that “Virginia’s current iteration of rights restoration is unstable and deeply partisan, shifting dramatically between gubernatorial administrations and confusing eligible voters.”
“This systemic volatility undermines participation and trust in the electoral process, particularly for justice-impacted communities,” said the report.
Earlier this year, a landmark federal court decision restored voting rights to Virginians convicted of certain felonies prior to the Civil War.
The decision was made by District Court Judge John Gibney, who struck down Virginia’s felony disenfranchisement rule in January 2026, according to an article written by Dean Mirshahi on Virginia’s Home for Public Media.
Gibney’s court order says Virginia cannot strip someone’s voting rights for felonies other than those recognized under common law in 1870: arson, burglary, escape and rescue from a prison or jail, larceny, manslaughter, mayhem, murder, rape, robbery, sodomy and suicide.
Vishal Agraharkar, a senior supervising attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia who also represented plaintiffs King and Johnson in the lawsuit, called the decision “a historical ruling,” according to VPM.
Agraharkar also noted that “it strikes down one of the remaining vestiges of Jim Crow in Virginia in its felony disenfranchisement regime,” and paves the way for potentially hundreds of thousands of Virginians to have their rights restored and “countless people in the future who will not lose their right to vote in the first place.”
The Sentencing Project emphasized that “this decision signified a positive development in the fight for rights restoration, but there is still an opportunity for Virginia to develop a democratic system that is truly representative of the commonwealth.”
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