RICHMOND, Va. — Among the three constitutional amendments the Virginia Senate advanced this week was one that would automatically restore the right to vote to people who have completed their felony sentence.

But lawmakers have also taken up several other bills that would makes changes to elections or how people vote. Experts say that’s in line with an intense focus on voting and election laws in state legislatures across the country.

“They’ve been extremely active in ways they weren’t before,” said Andrew Garber, voting rights counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive law and public policy institute. “This isn’t a slight uptick; it’s a huge wave, a tsunami.”

Between 2021 and 2024, states passed 79 restrictive voting laws, compared with 27 and 17 in the previous four-year periods, Garber said. But, expansive voting laws have outpaced restrictive ones — between 2021 and ’24, at least 42 states and Washington enacted 172 expansive laws.

One local effort to expand voting access is a bill proposed by Del. Chad Green, R-Seaford, that would allow for Virginians to automatically register to vote when applying for any hunting or fishing license or concealed handgun permit. That bill, currently before the House Election Administration subcommittee, is part of a broader trend of similar efforts in other states, Garber said.

“To register someone to vote, you need to know where they live, what their address is, a precinct to put them in, that they’re 18 years old,” Garber said. “When you just registered for a hunting license, and you gave them all the information they would need to register you to vote, if they are automatically doing that, without you having to fill out a form or go to a separate location that can be a big boon for a lot of people.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee took up a slate of other voting legislation Tuesday. Senators voted, along party lines, to pass out of committee legislation that would require the Department of Elections to complete its systemic removal of people from the voter rolls 90 days before any election. Democrats were in favor of the bill, and Republicans opposed it.

They also passed out of committee legislation that would allow localities to conduct their local school board and mayoral elections by ranked choice. The bill’s patron, Sen. Saddam Azlan Salim, D-Fairfax, said the measure is a minor adjustment to an existing pilot program that allows localities to adopt ranked choice for city council and board of supervisors.

Supporters of the bill who spoke at the public comment period cited crowded local elections, including in Norfolk and Newport News, leading to a low percentage of votes for any one candidate. Opponents described difficulty of tabulating votes by precinct after the first round of voting, as well as lower turnout and delays in the election process.

Republican lawmakers, such as Sen. Mark Peake of Lynchburg, proposed legislation that would have required more intensive voter identification. Peake’s bills that would have required voters to present a photo ID and have their social security numbers verified died in the committee with an 8-7 vote along party lines. Lawmakers also voted down Peake’s legislation that would have limited the in-person absentee voting period to 14 days before the election, as opposed to the current standard 45 days. Peake cited concerns about poor turnout before the last two weeks of in-person voting.

“The expense is outrageous,” he said. “Nobody shows up for half of these small primaries and they have to be open for 45 days. It’s costing our localities a fortune.”

Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, was not convinced.

“I love the registrars, we gave them a pay raise a little while ago,” he said. “We should do things to help them, but we shouldn’t do it at the expense of people being able to have access to the vote.”

The constitutional amendment that would automatically restore voting rights to people convicted of a felony after their sentence was served has now passed both chambers. The House passed the resolution, 55-44, last week. The Senate passed its version 21-18 on Tuesday.

However, this is the first step in the constitutional amendment process. Once both chambers agree on a version of the resolution, the General Assembly will need to pass it again next year before it goes to the ballot for public referendum in November 2026.

Currently, people who have completed their felony sentence must appeal to the governor to have their rights restored.

To date, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has restored the voting rights of 8,400 individuals, according to his press secretary Christian Martinez. In 2023, Youngkin rolled back a policy that automatically restored voting rights to people who had completed their felony sentences.

_____

©2025 The Virginian-Pilot. Visit pilotonline.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.