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McAuliffe had issued a sweeping executive order in April that affected 206,000 ex-offenders in the state.
In a 4-3 ruling, the state's justices said under the state constitution, McAuliffe didn't have the authority for such a proclamation.
[...] Nothing stops the governor from granting rights to felons on an individual basis, but the justices said it was unconstitutional to do it through a blanket order.
[...] Under McAuliffe's order, the restoration of rights only extended to felons who have finished serving their terms — anyone in prison, or on supervised probation or parole, was still barred from voting. The order also granted felons the right to serve on juries and become a notary.
[...] He also noted that most states allow felons who have completed their terms to vote — Iowa, Kentucky and Florida are the only other exceptions.
[...] "Republicans suspect the real motive for McAuliffe's order is political," [NPR's] Pam [Fessler] reported [earlier this month]. "The governor is a close ally of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who could benefit from more African-American voters if the race in Virginia is tight. McAuliffe denied that was his reason for issuing the order."
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 25 2016, @05:23AM
In the US prior to 1920, women weren't allowed to vote. Of course before the Civil War, blacks couldn't vote. But even earlier, only landowners could vote. The young aren't allowed to vote, have to be at least 18 years old, a relatively recent improvement on the older minimum age of 21.
You start denying people the right to vote, and you do several things. You make the swarm intelligence less intelligent. If we're going to consult the swarm intelligence, we ought to do a proper job of it, not try to skew the results. Otherwise, why even bother holding an election? For the sake of appearances, while in reality our nation becomes a dictatorship? Another thing you do is hand vote suppressors another tool. In this case, they could encourage local governments to ramp up the policing to extreme levels, try to drag as many people as possible into court and slap them with trumped up felony convictions. A bunch of interested parties-- lawyers, the prison industrial complex, and the municipalities-- make more money from all the activity, and a bunch of voters get kicked off the rolls.
I've heard of way too many wrongful convictions, even at the felony and death penalty level where one would hope they'd be more careful, to want to add this condition of no felony convictions to the right to vote. That complicates things for no good reason. What are you afraid that ex-felons could possibly do with their votes? Protest? Surely that's better than resorting to violence. Take away their right to vote and what message do you send? That violence is the only way to make themselves heard?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2016, @05:35AM
"ramp up the policing to extreme levels, try to drag as many people as possible into court and slap them with trumped up felony convictions."
But - we are already there. I don't remember the first time I heard that the US incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world. At first, I denied that - there must be some dicatatorships that imprison more than we do. What about that evil sumbitch, Saddam Hussein? But, no, the fact is, in today's modern world, we do imprison more poeple than any other nation. Oh wow - we slipped to number two last year, Seychelles has 868 prisoners per 100k population, compared to our 698.
http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-prison-population-rates-in-the-world.html [worldatlas.com]
1 Seychelles 868
2 United States of America 698
3 St. Kitts and Nevis 611
4 Virgin Islands (USA) 542
5 Turkmenistan 522
6 Cuba 510
7 Rwanda 492
8 El Salvador 465
9 Russian Federation 463
10 Thailand 452
11 Belize 449
12 Grenada 430
13 Virgin Islands (United Kingdom) 425
14 Guam (USA) 422
15 Bermuda (United Kingdom) 411
16 Anguilla (United Kingdom) 407
17 Sint Maarten (Netherlands) 396
18 Panama 392
19 Antigua and Barbuda 389
20 Bahamas 379
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 25 2016, @06:22AM
2nd highest incarceration rate? All the more reason not to deny felons the right to vote. You know a lot of people are in there who shouldn't be, victims of the War on Drugs among other misguided law making and enforcement.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday July 25 2016, @02:02PM
the US incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world. At first, I denied that - there must be some dicatatorships that imprison more than we do. What about that evil sumbitch, Saddam Hussein? But, no
That doesn't include summary executions, does it?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 25 2016, @02:14PM
I wouldn't think so. Of course, it's hard to tell which killings are summary execution, and which are self defense. Right here, in the US, we've had 986 killed by police in 2015, and 532 in 2016 - apparently as of June 30.
I would HOPE that most of those killings were in self defense, but in view of current events, you've got to wonder.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/07/05/3794553/police-killings-2016/ [thinkprogress.org]
An article from the Guardian says that Russia only killed 200 people in 2015.
I didn't find articles on China, but the wikipedia suggests that China isn't into killing citizens at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_China [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 25 2016, @10:17PM
Seychelles? I've been to the Seychelles several times and I'd swear there wasn't 868 people on the whole island!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday July 25 2016, @01:59PM
The young aren't allowed to vote, have to be at least 18 years old, a relatively recent improvement on the older minimum age of 21.
You start denying people the right to vote, and you do several things. You make the swarm intelligence less intelligent.
You're really going to follow up that thought with talking about intelligence?
So what arbitrary age do you think people become smart enough to vote at? Speaking from experience, I sure as hell wasn't well-enough informed to vote effectively even by 18.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday July 29 2016, @01:10AM
Speaking from experience, a grand majority of voters sure as hell aren't well-enough informed to vote effectively even when they are well past 18 years old. You could allow small children to vote and it wouldn't make much of a difference; we'd still end up with the same rabid partisan garbage that we have now, due in large part to the fact that most people are incredibly short-sighted and tribal.