Court denies challenge to Youngkin’s voting rights restoration process

A court has denied a challenge to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R-VA) process for restoring voting rights for people convicted of a felony and ruled it was filed under the wrong section of the law.

However, the court did criticize the governor’s use of power in the only state in the country that permanently strips civil rights away from felons.

“No one would suggest that Gov. Youngkin’s ‘fully implemented’ system is transparent, or that it gives the appearance of fairness,” the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found in a ruling issued Wednesday and signed by District Judge John A. Gibney Jr.

Youngkin’s method of receiving petitions for relief and deciding whether to rule on them without any explanation is “much like a monarch,” the court said, but nonetheless, “transparency and the appearance of fairness are not the issues in this case.”

Virginia’s governor has been harsher than the state’s past three governors in restoring rights to felons. Youngkin has only restored rights to a fraction of people compared to past governors in the state, according to the Washington Post. He’s been criticized for not setting out clear guidelines as to whose rights are restored and whose aren’t.

The original lawsuit challenged whether Youngkin violated the First Amendment rights of George Hawkins, who is a felon and has been twice denied the restoration of his rights. His case was filed by the Fair Elections Center, a D.C.-based voting rights organization, and the law firm Victor M. Glasberg & Associates. The case contended that Hawkins’s denial was akin to being improperly denied a permit for making a speech in a public place.

Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez told the outlet via text message that the governor “is pleased with the court’s ruling, which affirmed the Commonwealth’s argument and upheld Virginia’s restoration of rights program.”

Hawkins has vowed to appeal. Another lawsuit from the ACLU of Virginia claims the state’s disenfranchisement of people convicted of any felony violates a 150-year-old statute passed as a condition of Virginia rejoining the Union after the Civil War.

One of the state’s top Democratic lawmakers, House Speaker Don Scott, who served time in federal prison, has aimed to take the rights restoration out of Youngkin’s control with a state constitutional amendment.