SALT is in agreement with the ACLU Virginia:

“It’s time to guarantee the Right to Vote for people who have served their time. Here’s how we do that: Legislators need to vote on the same amendment SJ 1 in the Senate and HJ 9 in the House with the exact same language that passed during the last General Assembly.”

Please note: 65%of Virginians believe in second chances and that people who have served their time should vote, according to the ACLU Virginia.

Thanks to the Racial Justice Ministry folks at Saint John Neumann Parish in Reston, Virginia for providing the following points to consider.

• Everyone deserves a second chance, including released prisoners. We agree with Delegate Mike Cherry (R-66th), who has said,
  My faith teaches me that people make mistakes, and they can be redeemed from those mistakes and become, in this case, contributing members to society again. I don’t think we should impose lifetime restrictions and punishments on people when the courts did not deem it necessary to give them a life sentence.
• Voting is a key political right and a cornerstone of citizenship in a republican form of government. It should not be a function of administrative procedures under which governors restore rights on an individual basis under shifting criteria.
• Voting gives each of us a sense of voice and a stake in our community, state, and country. This feeling of being able to contribute to the common good is vital to healthy citizenship and can help former prisoners re-integrate into their communities. Civic participation and voting have been associated with lower recidivism rates.
• About 250,000 Virginians who have completed their sentences are still not allowed to vote. These 250,000 persons are separate from the 200,000 Virginians whose voting rights have been restored since 2013 by action of several governors. Therefore, if the constitutional amendment is adopted, many Virginians from all parts of the state and all walks of life will be able to become full citizens, with all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In addition, every year, about 12,500 Virginians are released from prison after completing their sentences, and they also will be denied full citizenship in the future without a constitutional amendment.
• Restoring voting rights has been a bipartisan initiative. Republican Governor Robert McDonnell took the first step to restore voting rights to former prisoners in 2013, and Democratic Governors McAuliffe and Northam extended the practice. The amendment passed the 2021 General Assembly with votes from members of both parties.
• Thirty-seven other states from all parts of the country restore voting rights after the completion of the person’s sentence or parole and probation. Virginia is one of only three states whose constitutions permanently disenfranchise persons convicted of felonies.
• Restoring voting rights to persons who have served their time corrects a wrong from the Jim Crow era directed against African Americans but which has harmed Virginians of all races. Universal felony disenfranchisement originated in the 1902 Constitution, whose proponents aimed to exclude African Americans from political power. But this Jim Crow constitution ended up limiting the voting rights of many Virginians and badly damaging the state’s republican form of government. For example, after the ratification of the 1902 Constitution, voter turnout in Virginia declined by 50 percent between the 1900 and 1904 presidential elections. In presidential elections through the first half of the 20th century, turnout in Virginia hovered between 20 and 30 percent of eligible voters. This Jim Crow-era provision of our Constitution is still harming our republican form of government by limiting full civic participation in our deliberation over the common good.
• Passing this legislation, which moves the proposed constitutional amendment to the voter referendum required by our Constitution, gives Virginia’s voters the opportunity they deserve to decide on their form of government that they want – another right that is fundamental to republican principles of government.
  
  Sources:
  
  
• Graham Moomaw, “Why a Republican Legislator Wants to Make It Easier for Ex-offenders to Vote,” Virginia Mercury, 17 January 2022 (https://www.virginiamercury.com/2022/01/17/why-a-republican-legislator-wants-to-make-it-easier-for-ex-offenders-to-vote)
• Jean Chung, “Voting Rights in the Era of Mass Incarceration: A Primer,” The Sentencing Project, 28 July 2021 (http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/felony-disenfranchisement-a-primer/)
• Brennan Center, “Criminal Disenfranchisement Laws Across the United States”
• Walter Dean Burnham, Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics, Norton, 1970, p. 80.
• Matt Ford, “The Racist Roots of Virginia’s Disenfranchisement Law,” The Atlantic, 27 April 2016.
• Allen Wesley Moger, Virginia: From Bourbonism to Byrd, 1870-1925, University Press of Virginia, 1968 pp. 182-183.