Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Disenfranchised voters find alternative ways to participate in key state elections

Disenfranchised voters find alternative ways to participate in key state elections
Getty Images

Gilani is a graduate student journalist for Medill on the HiIl, a program of Northwestern University in which students serve as mobile journalists reporting on events in and around Washington, D.C.

VIRGINIA - Richard Walker grew up in a family where voting was mandatory because of the long history of Black voter suppression. He always valued his right to vote.


But after Walker completed his prison sentence in 2005, he lost his suffrage, a consequence of legislation he only learned about then.

“Of course, I was angry. I’m like, ‘who the heck is the Commonwealth of Virginia to deny me my constitutional right to vote?’” Walker said. He didn’t regain that privilege until about seven years later.

As voters recently went to the polls in state elections, people who lost their voting rights after felony convictions had to find other ways to get involved.

Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, Iowa and Tennessee have “the most restrictive voting bans for people with felony convictions in the country,” according to The Sentencing Project. Virginia and Kentucky, in particular, had some of the most watched races in the country in the most recent elections because of their significance for abortion rights.

Disenfranchised voters participated in both state elections without casting a ballot, whether it meant speaking with lawmakers, hosting voter drives or suing the government entities restricting their voting rights. Many in Virginia and Kentucky relied on these methods of civic engagement because their governors have the authority to grant or deny restored voting rights, which advocates described as “draconian.”

Walker’s organization, Bridging the Gap in Virginia, is a plaintiff in one of at least three lawsuits[1] that challenge Virginia’s current process for voter restoration for people with felonies. He founded the organization in 2009, driven by the loss of his rights.

Separate Virginia lawsuits arose earlier this year and directly called out Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin after he established a voter restoration system where he has the sole authority. His predecessor, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam automatically reinstated rights for felons once they completed their sentences.

One lawsuit was filed in April against the governor’s sole authority in determining voter restoration. One of the petitioners, the Fair Elections Center, joined a lawsuit in Kentucky four years prior for a similar reason.

“This lawsuit, there's so much hope pinned on it for me, and people like me,” said Bonifacio Aleman, a social worker and plaintiff in the Kentucky lawsuit who had his voting rights revoked.

Another Virginia lawsuit, filed in June, challenged a provision of the state constitution. The suit claimed the state currently violates the terms of Virginia’s readmission to Congress after the Civil War. The Readmission Act prohibited former Confederate states from including any provision in their constitutions that disenfranchised citizens aside from people convicted of the common law felonies at the time. The lawsuit said the state expanded its Constitution to include a broader set of crimes.

Under Youngkin, Virginia became the only state in the country with the governor as the sole proprietor for voter restoration. While Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also has the power to grant or deny applications, the state Department of Corrections reviews them before sending them to his office.

Jon Sherman, litigation director at the Fair Elections Center, said before Youngkin stepped in, Virginia was “one of the success stories in the country,” when it came to a voting rights restoration system. Sherman’s organization filed the April voting renewal lawsuit.

“Governor Younkin took office and, it's unclear exactly when it happened, but sometime last year, threw all of that out the window and turned the clock back a decade in Virginia, and now Virginia, once again has a purely arbitrary voting rights restoration system,” Sherman said.

In response to Fair Election Center’s lawsuit, Youngkin’s legal representation said the lawsuit should be dismissed because the claims lack merit, according to documents filed in the court.

Aleman works for a grassroots organization, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which worked to reelect Beshear, a Democrat. Aleman remarked that he is in an interesting position because he’s fighting against the state of Kentucky in the lawsuit.

“The governor's office is fighting this case and, at the same time, my job is endorsing the current governor in his bid for reelection. So emotionally, [it] makes for some trying times,” he said.

The Beshear administration said it could not respond to Medill News Service’s request by the time of publication.

“What is different from both Democrat and Republican administrations with this administration is there's no criteria that we are able to get them to state. They have been very cloak-and-dagger about what the actual criteria is,” said ACLU of Virginia Policy and Advocacy Strategist Shawn Weneta. The ACLU of Virginia is one of the organizations that filed the June lawsuit.

The NAACP also criticized Youngkin’s “arbitrary” process for voter restoration and filed a lawsuit last month. The organization said his administration failed to turn over public records to explain how it decides whether to restore the voting rights of convicted felons who have completed their sentences.

In a conversation with 13News Now, Youngkin said his administration is “fully complying with the law.”

“I believe every Virginian that has the right to vote should be voting, and that's the job that we're doing," he said in the interview.

The Youngkin administration had not responded to Medill News Service by the time of publication.

Weneta said that the Youngkin administration and the Secretary of the Commonwealth advocates failed to provide a direct, concise answer to advocates, members of the General Assembly and individual voters who asked about the criteria for applying to regain the right to vote.

In addition to the confusion surrounding requirements for restoration, Weneta said many people are turned off by the application process itself.

“There are thousands of people that are waiting to have their applications processed, and that's just people that apply. There's other many thousands of people that have gotten out [of prison] and simply just haven't applied or don't want to deal with the hassle of it,” Weneta said.

Weneta was a disenfranchised voter until Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration in 2021. He said he spent 15 years in prison, watching politicians make decisions that impacted constituents, many of whom were unenthused about the electoral process.

“Until you've lost your rights, until you don't have something anymore, you don't value it as much,” he said.

The Kentucky case began with Deric Lostutter, a paralegal who lost his voting rights after serving time in federal prison for his role as a hacker in a group of digital activists, Anonymous. When he searched for people who lost their rights like him, he found that many of them were convicted for what he categorized as, “poor people crimes,” like shoplifting at least $500 worth of merchandise.

“Chances of meeting a felon are high and you wouldn't even know it. We're just normal people. So I would say it's normal just to walk around and meet regular people,” Lostutter said. “We’re people just like everybody else, we deserve our rights just like everybody else.”

While some other plaintiffs in the Kentucky case had their voting rights restored, Lostutter had no intention to apply. He refused to participate in the current system. Instead, he decided to speak at city hall, petition local representatives and continue fighting in the case.

While Walker was denied voting rights, he found other ways to honor his family’s dedication to civic engagement.

“I was transporting people to the polls, even though I didn't have the right to vote,” Walker said.

For him, the issue goes beyond Youngkin’s administration.

“I’m angry with this state. I'm angry with every administration that’s been through this state that has not repealed this legislation that denies individuals the right to vote,” Walker said.

Associated Press

Read More

Texas counties struggle to process voter registrations using state’s new TEAM system

Brenda Núñez, the Nueces County, Texas, voter registration supervisor, shows the homepage of the TEAM system in her office in Corpus Christi on Sept. 11, 2024. The Texas Secretary of State's Office launched a revamp of the system in July 2025, and election officials across the state have reported various problems that have prevented them from completing essential election preparation tasks.

(Gabriel Cárdenas for Votebeat)

Texas counties struggle to process voter registrations using state’s new TEAM system

Darcy Hood mailed her voter registration application to the Tarrant County elections department in July, after she turned 18.

Months later, her application still hasn’t been processed. And it’s unclear when it will be.

Keep ReadingShow less
In a room full of men, Hegseth called for a military culture shift from ‘woke’ to ‘warrior’

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stands at attention at the Pentagon on September 22, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

In a room full of men, Hegseth called for a military culture shift from ‘woke’ to ‘warrior’

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called hundreds of generals and admirals stationed from around the world to convene in Virginia on Tuesday — with about a week’s notice. He announced 10 new directives that would shift the military’s culture away from what he called “woke garbage” and toward a “warrior ethos.”

“This administration has done a great deal since Day 1 to remove the social justice, politically-correct, toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department,” Hegseth said. “No more identity months, DEI offices or dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction of gender delusions. No more debris. As I’ve said before and will say, we are done with that shit.”

Keep ReadingShow less
ICE Policy Challenged in Court for Blocking Congressional Oversight of Detention Centers

Federal agents guard outside of a federal building and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in downtown Los Angeles as demonstrations continue after a series of immigration raids began last Friday on June 13, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.

Getty Images, Spencer Platt

ICE Policy Challenged in Court for Blocking Congressional Oversight of Detention Centers

In a constitutional democracy, congressional oversight is not a courtesy—it is a cornerstone of the separation of powers enshrined in our founding documents.

Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) has filed an amicus brief in Neguse v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguing that ICE’s policy restricting unannounced visits by members of Congress “directly violates federal law.” Twelve lawmakers brought this suit to challenge ICE’s new requirement that elected officials provide seven days’ notice before visiting detention facilities—an edict that undermines transparency and shields executive agencies from scrutiny.

Keep ReadingShow less
How Billionaires Are Rewriting History and Democracy
Getty Images, SvetaZi

How Billionaires Are Rewriting History and Democracy

In the Gilded Age of the millionaire, wealth signified ownership. The titans of old built railroads, monopolized oil, and bought their indulgences in yachts, mansions, and eventually, sports teams. A franchise was the crown jewel: a visible, glamorous token of success. But that era is over. Today’s billionaires, those who tower, not with millions but with unimaginable billions, find sports teams and other baubles beneath them. For this new aristocracy, the true prize is authorship of History (with a capital “H”) itself.

Once you pass a certain threshold of wealth, it seems, mere possessions no longer thrill. At the billionaire’s scale, you wake up in the morning searching for something grand enough to justify your own existence, something commensurate with your supposed singularly historical importance. To buy a team or build another mansion is routine, played, trite. To reshape the very framework of society—now that is a worthy stimulus. That is the game. And increasingly, billionaires are playing it.

Keep ReadingShow less