Virginia's Democratic governor has restored voting rights to more than 66,000 people with felony convictions since taking office, a figure that exceeds her Republican predecessor's four-year total by more than six to one.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced Friday that she has granted voting rights to 66,085 Virginians with previous felony convictions, using a streamlined restoration system that processes cases automatically rather than requiring individual applications. The announcement lands ahead of a November referendum that would amend Virginia's constitution to make that restoration automatic for every felon released from prison.
The contrast with former Gov. Glenn Youngkin is sharp and deliberate. Youngkin, a Republican, restored voting rights to fewer than 10,000 felons across his entire four-year term, VPM News reported. His administration required each person to file an individual application, a process his spokesperson defended in 2023 as one that weighed "the unique elements of each situation."
Spanberger framed Youngkin's approach as obstruction. In her statement, she said she was "proud" to have acted "after contending with my predecessor's efforts to deny Virginians their fundamental rights."
The legal backdrop matters. Virginia's constitution permanently strips voting rights from anyone convicted of a felony. Convicted felons also lose the right to serve on a jury. Completing a prison sentence does not change that. The only path back runs through the governor's office, which holds sole authority to restore those rights on a case-by-case basis.
Several governors before Youngkin used an automatic or streamlined system to handle restorations. Youngkin broke from that approach. In March 2023, his administration began requiring felons released from prison to apply individually, the Virginia Mercury reported at the time.
A Youngkin spokesperson told the Virginia Mercury that the governor believed in "second chances for Virginians who have made mistakes, but are working to move forward as active members of our citizenry." But the spokesperson also stressed that the governor did not treat the power casually:
"The Constitution places the responsibility to consider Virginians for restoration in the hands of the Governor alone, and he does not take this lightly. Restoration of rights are assessed on an individual basis according to the law and take into consideration the unique elements of each situation, practicing grace for those who need it and ensuring public safety for our community and families."
Youngkin's position was straightforward: the constitution assigns this power to the governor personally, and exercising it one person at a time is how you balance mercy with public safety. Spanberger's position is equally clear, she wants volume, and she wants the constitution changed so the governor's involvement is no longer necessary at all.
Spanberger did not stop at announcing the restorations. She used the moment to campaign for a constitutional amendment that Virginia voters will decide this fall. The referendum would strip the permanent-disenfranchisement provision from Virginia's constitution and replace it with automatic restoration upon release from prison.
In her statement, Spanberger cast the current constitutional provision in racial terms, calling it "a shameful relic of our Jim Crow past." That characterization is her framing, not a settled legal or historical finding, but it signals how Democrats intend to sell the amendment to voters. The broader Democratic strategy of reframing election-integrity questions as civil-rights battles is familiar. James Carville recently urged his own party to surrender on voter ID, acknowledging that the fight polls at 75 percent against Democrats, a concession that suggests the party's credibility on election rules is thinner than its leaders want to admit.
"This fall, voters can cast their ballots for Virginia to no longer strip so many of our neighbors of their fundamental rights, a shameful relic of our Jim Crow past. I hope Virginians will join me in voting yes."
Spanberger also said the 66,085 people whose rights she restored "deserve the right to use their vote, make their voices heard, and be recognized as contributing citizens to our Commonwealth and country."
The sheer scale of Spanberger's action raises questions that her announcement left unanswered. Which felony convictions qualified? Were there exclusions for violent offenders? Sex offenders? People with multiple convictions? The announcement offered no detail on eligibility criteria or screening. If 66,085 people received restored rights through an automatic system, the public deserves to know what safeguards, if any, separated a first-time offender who wrote bad checks from a repeat violent felon.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Virginia GOP for comment but had not received a response as of publication. That silence is itself notable. Republicans in Virginia have a governor openly campaigning to permanently change the state's constitution on felon voting, and the state party apparatus has, so far, said nothing publicly.
Spanberger's approval rating already sits underwater, as the Washington Examiner has separately reported. She is governing as though volume and speed are virtues in themselves, restoring rights at a pace more than six times faster than Youngkin managed in four years. Whether that pace reflects principled urgency or political calculation depends on what you think the purpose of the governor's restoration power actually is.
Youngkin's administration argued the answer was obvious: the constitution gives the power to the governor alone precisely so that each case gets individual scrutiny. Spanberger's approach treats that scrutiny as an obstacle. Democrats nationally have been busy assembling new institutional playbooks, and Spanberger's mass-restoration effort fits the pattern, use executive power aggressively now, then lock the policy in through a constitutional change that makes it permanent regardless of who holds office next.
The philosophical gap between the two governors is worth stating plainly. Youngkin restored fewer than 10,000 voting rights in four years because he treated each case individually. His administration reviewed circumstances, weighed public safety, and made a judgment call, exactly what the Virginia constitution contemplates when it places the power in one person's hands.
Spanberger restored more than 66,000 in a fraction of that time by automating the process. An automatic system, by definition, does not weigh "the unique elements of each situation." It does not practice "grace for those who need it" while "ensuring public safety." It processes names.
That distinction matters. If the governor's restoration power exists because the constitution's framers wanted a human check on which felons regain the franchise, then automating that check defeats its purpose. Spanberger is not exercising discretion. She is bypassing it, and then asking voters to ratify the bypass by amending the constitution so no future governor can slow the process down.
The November referendum will test whether Virginia voters share that view. Shifting political fortunes in 2026 may shape how both parties approach the ballot measure, but the underlying question is simple: should convicted felons automatically regain voting rights the moment they leave prison, or should someone in authority look at who they are and what they did first?
Spanberger has made her position clear. She wants the automatic route, and she has spent her time in office proving she means it, one batch of 66,085 names at a time. Democrats in Washington have shown a similar willingness to use procedural leverage when it suits their political goals, even when the costs fall on people who had no say in the decision.
Virginians who followed the law, served on juries when called, and never lost their right to vote might reasonably ask why their governor is in such a hurry to hand that same right to tens of thousands of people who committed felonies, without even checking the file first.