DPVA Recognizes Violent Felons Were Given Blanket Restoration of Rights

The Democratic Party of Virginia has acknowledged that Governor Terry McAuliffe’s restoration of rights to felons includes more than 40,000 violent offenders.

In a press release, the DPVA states:

“Newly released data shows that nearly 80 percent of those who had their rights restored are non-violent offenders.”

Simple math means that 20 percent of those who had their rights restored were the opposite: violent offenders.

This means that of the 200k+ who will now be sitting in jury boxes, voting, et al, at least 40k of them committed some sort of violent felony that deserved incarceration.

Of course, this is not the premise of the DPVA release. They were trying to do a hit-piece on Republicans such as Donald Trump, Bill Howell and Rob Bell for daring to question the governor’s sweeping policy. In their release, they used the following quotes as “hateful rhetoric” that was meant to “demonize” those having their rights restored:

“They’re giving 200,000 people that have been convicted of heinous crimes, horrible crimes, the worst crimes, the right to vote” – Donald Trump

“A murder victim won’t get to vote, but the man that killed them will.” – Del. Robert B. Bell

“The Governor’s policy applies to criminals who have committed even the most heinous violent crimes including murder, rape, child rape, and kidnapping. Under this Governor’s policy, violent criminals will be treated the same as lifelong law-abiding citizens.” – Speaker Howell

The irony is that the DPVA release actually proved the point they were trying to refute: that there are many violent felons who are being now given equal treatment under the law with no review of the offense nor regard for the victims.