When Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 state citizens with felony convictions in April, he opened the door — much to the dismay of state Republicans — to a influx of likely Democratic voters in a state whose recent presidential elections have been decided by razor-thin margins.

So far, however, very few of those potential voters have taken the first step toward actually showing up in November. As of June 30, only 8,170 of the newly eligible Virginians have registered to vote, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.


For many, the gap between eligible voters and registered voters is distressing, particularly given the struggle waged over ex-offenders’ right to vote. McAuliffe’s order restored voting rights to felons who have completed their incarceration, parole or probation and paid all court-related fees and restitution. Virginia felons had long ago lost their right to vote permanently — one of few states in the country to use so harsh of a penalty — until former Gov. Bob McDonnell began lifting these restrictions in 2013 (though felons still had to apply individually for a rights restoration).

McAuliffe touted his order as the restoration of democratic rights, while his critics viewed his motives more cynically. McAuliffe is a long-time ally of Hillary Clinton, and Republicans accused the Democratic governor of using the order to up the number of Democratic-leaning voters on the state rolls ahead of the swing-state showdown between Clinton and Donald Trump in November.

If the newly enfranchised Virginians do begin signing up in large numbers, it’s likely to be a boon for Clinton in a critical state because considerable evidence exists that ex-offenders lean toward Democrats. A study from the American Sociological Review found that “because felons are drawn disproportionately from the ranks of racial minorities and the poor,” they tend to vote Democratic upon leaving prison. In Virginia, African-Americans — a strong Democratic constituency — make up more than half the prison population, according to The Sentencing Project , a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington.

And in Virginia, even a small edge can matter. A RealClearPolitics polling average found Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump by 4 percentage points. In 2012, then-Sen. Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by only 115,910 votes in Virginia, about half of the 232,317 votes by which he beat Arizona Sen. John McCain there in 2008.

But despite the fight over McAuliffe’s order, which is currently facing legal challenges, Democrats looking for a trove of new potential voters are thus far finding few.

In the first few months after McAuliffe’s order, the newly enfranchised are almost entirely absent from voter lists, and those who have registered report an often confusing system that lacks proactive government assistance — or even makes registration impossible entirely.

In order to determine if they qualify for a rights restoration, felons can search their names in a database on the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s website, but that list is currently incomplete because entries are added every month.

Odessa Hudson, 41, of Fredericksburg waited nearly 2 months after McAuliffe’s order before she could formally register again. Hudson lost her right to vote in 1997 after she was convicted of a felony drug possession charge, even though she was sentenced to only four months of house arrest. In late May, she saw an article about the executive order in a local paper and called the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office to register.

But the Secretary’s office couldn’t find her name in the database; she was one of many felons whose name would be retroactively added to the rolls in the monthly updates.

Hudson reached out to Virginia Organizing, a progressive organization, after finding their website online. A staffer there helped her outline to the secretary’s office why she should qualify for a rights restoration. Finally, her voting registration card arrived in the mail in late June. “I’ve held a [college] degree in my hand and it didn’t feel this good,” she said.

Democrats are opaque about what effort they are taking to engage the potential new voters. Virginia state Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Bolton said that “of course the Party will be working to get them registered and earn their votes” but did not respond to multiple requests for details. And the Clinton campaign pointed to a tweet the candidate sent in support of McAuliffe’s decision at the time, deferring further requests to the state Democratic Party.

Instead, it’s nongovernmental organizations such as New Virginia Majority and the nonpartisan Revive My Vote — alongside individual attorneys and student organizers — who have made the most visible effort to get the newly eligible voters enrolled.

New Virginia Majority, which was founded in 2007, is funded by a combination of various grants and donations. Revive My Vote was founded in 2013 at William & Mary Law School and operates from donations, as well as support from the law school and a grant from the Knight Foundation.

While NVM and RMV work with the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office, they are often the only organized bodies proactively working to register voters. Neither has worked with the Clinton campaign.

But while the organizations and McAuliffe’s office share the goal of enfranchising voters, they’re at odds over a crucial stage in that process: access to a comprehensive list of the ex-offenders whose voting rights have been restored.

Thus far, McAuliffe’s office has refused to release the list, saying it’s incomplete and may include people who are mistakenly on it. “There are some folks who have appeared on the list in error,” said McAuliffe’s communications director, Brian Coy. “When you’re dealing with a list of 200,000-plus people, as with any big data list, there’s going to be a certain error rate. As we have become aware of folks who have appeared on the list in error, we’re taking them off.”

“This process is ongoing. It’s a breathing document within the [secretary’s] office,” Coy said.

The office plans to release the list in January, but for groups looking to register voters before the November election, that’s too late. Coy emphasized that releasing a list of newly enfranchised voters is an annual process, called the SP2 process, that McAuliffe and previous governors have done so despite the fact that there is no legal requirement for it.

Voting rights groups aren’t the only ones seeking the complete database. A group of GOP lawmakers and 43 commonwealth attorneys with various political affiliations claim there are numerous errors in the list because of its broad scope. Some of the attorneys, through vetting specific felons in their personal databases, have discovered that rights were accidentally restored to 132 sex offenders who are still institutionalized; to a man judged to be mentally incompetent who is sitting in a psychiatric ward; and to a man who was deported. The attorneys filed a brief with these findings to the Virginia Supreme court to support a lawsuit introduced by GOP members and voters in May, including Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment.

Norment argued that McAuliffe’s order is unconstitutional and a “political sleight of hand” that primarily sought political gain without properly considering the consequences of a blanket restoration.

Another lawsuit spearheaded by Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group, was introduced June 13. It also argues McAuliffe overstepped his authority but is using a more formal process by moving through lower courts. The Virginia Supreme Court will hear the first case July 19.

Without the list, voter registration groups are working backward, searching for felons’ records individually in the secretary’s public database — the same one that inadvertently failed to include Hudson.

Without access to a comprehensive list of newly eligible voters, these groups primarily depend on word of mouth, in-person community outreach and hotlines.

While the leaders of these voting information groups say they’d like the list to be released, they fear it might, like the publicly searchable database they’re currently working from, contain incorrect or incomplete information.

“The list would certainly be helpful,” said Tram Nguyen, co-executive director of New Virginia Majority. “But I don’t want to put too much stock on the list because you can imagine that ... the contact info for folks on the list may not be the most accurate.”

CORRECTION: The group Hudson reached out to was Virginia Organizing. A previous version contained incorrect information.