Gov. Abigail Spanberger has restored the civil rights of more than 66,000 Virginians who have been convicted of felonies.
Virginia is one of three states where people convicted of felonies lose their civil rights permanently, unless the governor restores them. A proposed constitutional amendment on the fall ballot would make those restorations automatic. For now, they require the governor’s signature.
Spanberger’s restorations cover about six months; her predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, approved just under 10,000 in four years. As for what the two previous Democratic governors have done, Terry McAuliffe signed about 173,000 in four years while Ralph Northam issued about 126,000 over four years.
There’s been a lot of chatter online that Spanberger has added 66,000 voters to the state’s voter rolls. That’s not quite so. She’s made 66,000 or so people eligible to register to vote, but they do have to take that step with the registration paperwork. That raises a question: How many of these people will register to vote?
Let’s do some math!
First: What percentage of people normally register to vote? Let’s find out. Virginia’s population is estimated at 8,880,107. The Census Bureau says that 79.1% of those are 18 and over, which would make them voting age. That means we have 7,024,164 Virginians who are old enough to vote.
But wait! Not all those are citizens. The Census Bureau says that 94.3% of Virginia residents are American citizens. That figure is for all residents, we don’t know if it’s exactly that for those 18 and older, but for our purposes today, let’s assume it is.
That means of those 7,024,164 Virginians 18 or older, 6,623,787 are American citizens. Now we’re getting somewhere. The Department of Elections says there are 6,022,038 registered voters in the state, so 90.9% of those eligible (by age) to register are signed up. That figure seems high to me, but that’s what the math shows.
Now we get to the speculation part. If those newly restored Virginians register at the same rate as other Virginians, then 90.9% will do so — which would mean 59,994 will register. But will they?
These folks probably weren’t the most civically engaged before their felonies; do we think that incarceration has made them more so? Hold that thought.
We know that voter registration varies by income level — the more money you make, the more likely you are to register to vote; the less money you make, the less likely you are to register.
It seems safe to assume that those who have been convicted of felonies, but are now out of prison, are likely not upper-income earners. The Poor People’s Campaign estimated that in 2020, about 77.7% of those making under $50,000 were registered to vote. That still seems high to me but in the absence of other data, let’s roll with that.
That means 46,615 of our newly restored Virginians will register to vote.
Now comes the next step: How many of them will actually vote?
That depends a lot on what the election is. Voter turnout swings up and down — highest in presidential years, lowest in certain “off-year” elections, although in Virginia we don’t really have any years off from elections. Still, some draw more voters than others.
We’re coming up on the congressional midterms. In the last midterms, 49.28% of Virginians who were registered to vote actually did so. At that rate, we’re looking at 22,971 voters. Those midterms came when Joe Biden was president and Democrats were in charge. The last midterms when Donald Trump was president and there were Republicans running Congress was 2018; that year Virginia saw a turnout of 59.5%. At that rate, we’d have 27,725 from our original pool of 66,000 people.
Now, here’s what’s harder for me to calculate: Not only do those who make less money register at lower rates, they also vote at lower rates — so we’re probably looking at numbers below that range of 22,971 to 27,275. How far below? That’s the part that’s hard to calculate. For now, let’s just go with these numbers.
Next: Who are these newly restored Virginians going to vote for? A lot of the criticism online assumes they will be Democratic voters. But will they be? Once again, let’s try some math.
We don’t know the racial breakdown of these 66,000 people, but we know — from state reports — that 54.3% of Virginia’s prison population is Black, 44.9% is white. If those percentages apply to this group of 66,000, then we’re talking 34,838 Black Virginians and 29,634 white Virginians. Now we have to start our math all over again. The Poor People’s Campaign says that Black Americans making under $50,000 register to vote at slightly higher levels than white Americans in that category — they say 81.2% for Black Americans, 78.32% for white Americans.
Using those figures, we can estimate 28,288 new Black voters and 23,209 white voters.
However, the Poor People’s Campaign also says that white voters in that income bracket are more likely to vote than Black voters. The figures they have, though, are for the 2020 presidential election. That year in Virginia, overall turnout was 75.08%. If we think the Poor People’s Campaign’s figures on turnout apply to Virginia (68.13% for Black voters making under $50,000, 79.53% for white voters in that bracket), then in a presidential year we’d be looking at 15,842 new Black voters and 18,458 white voters. What about a congressional midterm? If turnout descends at the same rate for all groups — and it may not — then let’s take a quarter of those out of the picture. That brings us to 11,881 Black voters and 13,843 white voters in a midterm where about half those registered vote overall.
Which party does this benefit and by how much? In most recent elections in Virginia, it appears from election returns that about 90% of Black voters have voted Democratic — we derive that figure from looking at precincts where the racial makeup is known. That means among the 11,881 Black voters we get 10,693 Democratic voters and 1,188 Republican voters.
What about those new white voters, though? They are harder to predict, but Pew Research tells us that white voters favor Republicans — especially white voters without college degrees, which probably describes most of these convicted felons. In 2022, 51% of white voters backed Republicans but 57% of those without a college degree did. If we apply those numbers here, that means of our 13,843 new white voters, 7,890 might be Republicans while 5,952 might be Democrats.
Add all that together and we get 16,645 Democratic votes and 9,078 Republican ones. That’s a clear Democratic margin, but very few statewide elections get decided by a margin of 7,567 votes or less (although we have had some). For comparison purposes, the 2024 presidential election in Virginia had a margin of 260,310 votes. Youngkin won the 2021 governor’s race by 63,688 votes.
So is all this right? I have no idea. It’s one thing to play around with math and another when real people are involved. There is one thing, though, that seems quite certain: While more than 66,000 people have had their civil rights restored, that doesn’t mean we’re getting 66,000 new voters.
Yeah, lots of numbers here. We’ll get a bunch more numbers in Tuesday’s primary elections, probably enough to chew on all week. Whatever I don’t get to right away I’ll deal with in our weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, that goes out on Friday afternoons. Sign up here:
