A national taxpayer’s watchdog on Tuesday sued Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a top Clinton presidential surrogate, to block his effort to let 206,000 convicted felons vote in the fall presidential election.
Washington-based Judicial Watch is requesting an injunction to block McAuliffe’s executive order, claiming that voting rights are supposed to be granted individually, not en masse.
A recent study in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science found that 73 percent of felons that vote in presidential elections choose Democratic candidates. Republican critics claim that the added votes could put Virginia out of reach for the GOP. Mitt Romney lost to President Obama by 115,910 votes.
The lawsuit, filed in Bedford County in the middle of the commonwealth, claims that the felon vote will offset the votes of others.
A release explaining the lawsuit said:
Judicial Watch argues that this blanket restoration of rights to felons violates ‘provisions of the Virginia Constitution mandating that voting rights may only be restored on an individual basis, following a particular, individualized review and a finding of sufficient grounds for restoring such rights.’
Judicial Watch’s clients allege that their votes and the lawful votes of other Virginians will be cancelled out or diminished by felons who are not eligible to vote under Virginia’s laws and constitution. Further, these illegitimate votes may affect the 2016 presidential election.
McAuliffe is hoping to push the state into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s column in the fall. He was a top campaign aide in her 2008 presidential election and has long been a top Clinton fundraiser.
Lately, his donor operation has come under investigation.
Judicial Watch cited analysis from past Democratic and Republican officials that the governor does not have the constitutional right to grant voting rights en masse.
“Gov. McAuliffe’s felon voting rights ‘executive order’ is outside the law and undermines free and fair elections in Virginia,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, “Voters in Virginia will see their legal votes erased and diminished by the hundreds of thousands of felons unleashed on the election system by Gov. McAuliffe.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
