The future of voting rights in Virginia will be driven, in part, by the Readmission Act of 1870.
The year was 1870, and Virginia was under military occupation. In order to have members of Congress return to the Capitol, state officials agreed that they would not make up new felonies to disenfranchise Black people.
“It acknowledges the fact that Southern states are stripping Black voting power by expanding the definition of felonies to include various things that were not considered felonies then," says ACLU lawyer Eden Heilman about the Readmission Act of 1870. "And so, it basically said that Virginia cannot amend its constitution to disenfranchise anyone for a felony that is not currently a felony at common law right now. And that would be in 1870.”
The ACLU successfully brought a case arguing many people should have the right to vote are denied because they were convicted of a felony computer crime or as part of the War on Drugs.
“The United States Constitution's even older than that," says legal expert Rich Kelsey on implementing a law that's 156 years old. "So, someone did some great research and realized that Virginia was on the hook, and that it was entirely unable to prevent people from voting for any other reason than the common law reasons that were set out by the Readmission Act.”
State officials are still trying to figure out how to implement the court’s ruling, including questions about whether people incarcerated for felony drug convictions should be able to vote while incarcerated.
