Sam Fulwood III: At long last, a wrong righted for disenfranchised Virginians

  In a stunning demonstration of political propriety and fairness, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) used his executive authority last week to restore voting rights to 210,000 convicted felons who have lawfully served their time and parole obligations in the state. It was long overdue.

  Governor McAuliffe’s order effectively negated a century of mean-spirited and misguided laws, including felon disenfranchisement, that were set in place by Reconstruction-era lawmakers intent on denying African Americans the right to vote. While the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated the once-onerous poll taxes and literacy laws written into the Virginia Constitution following the freeing of slaves at the end of the Civil War, laws forbidding felons from voting in the state survived—until McAuliffe, with a sweep of his pen, changed the law.