JUDY WOODRUFF:

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed a sweeping order today to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 convicted felons after their release from prison.

Republicans in the commonwealth quickly accused the governor of abusing his executive power to help Democrat Hillary Clinton win a battleground state.

Governor McAuliffe joins me now from Richmond.

Governor, welcome.

Why the decision to overturn something that's been in place in your state since the Civil War?

GOV. TERRY MCAULIFFE (D), Virginia: Well, let's be honest. We have had a bad history here on voting rights in Virginia. 1901, 1902, they put in the poll tax. They put in literacy tests. And they had a horrible disenfranchisement for felons.

So, what I did today was to erase 114, 115 years of a really, really repressive tactic used to deprive people their right to vote.