Virginia votes next month on whether to end a lifetime voting ban that dates to 1902 — and nearly half the people it keeps from voting are Black.
Here’s how it works now: a felony conviction takes away your vote for life unless the governor personally restores it, and each governor sets their own rules. Virginia is one of three states that leave restoration to the governor, but Iowa and Kentucky have standing executive orders that restore rights automatically in most cases — Virginia alone offers no guarantee.
Ballot Question 3 would change that. The amendment would make voting a fundamental right in the state constitution and restore it automatically when someone leaves prison, with no governor’s approval needed. It wouldn’t apply to people who are still incarcerated. The General Assembly approved the measure in 2025 and again in January 2026, which put it on the ballot.
As of 2024, an estimated 264,000 Virginians couldn’t vote because of a felony conviction — including about one in ten Black Virginians of voting age.
The ban’s purpose was stated plainly at its creation. At the constitutional convention of 1901–02, which also adopted a poll tax, convention leader Carter Glass said the goal was “the elimination of every Negro who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the strength of the white electorate”. In January, a federal judge ruled that Virginia’s current system violates the terms of the state’s 1870 readmission to the Union.
Quadaire Patterson, a Richmond advocate and founder of Brilliance Behind Bars, waited about two years after his release before his rights were restored this August. “I can say that I have full citizenship,” Patterson told Capital B.
Some Republican legislators, including Del. Eric Phillips, have argued that people convicted of the most serious offenses should be excluded from automatic restoration.
The people this amendment affects can’t vote on it — they’re counting on the people who can. Virginia’s deadline to register for a regular ballot is Friday, October 23. Early voting is open now and runs through October 31.
Check your registration at vote.gov.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.