Voting Rights Roundup: Democrat running for Kentucky governor could restore voting rights to 140,000
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Leading Off ● Kentucky: On Tuesday, state Attorney General Andy Beshear won the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in November, setting up a contest whose outcome will determine whether roughly 140,000 individuals regain the righVoting Rights Roundup: Democrat running for Kentucky governor could restore voting rights to 140,000
Leading Off ● Kentucky: On Tuesday, state Attorney General Andy Beshear won the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in November, setting up a contest whose outcome will determine whether roughly 140,000 individuals regain the right to vote. Campaign Action Kentucky is one of just two remaining states that impose a lifetime ban on voting by anyone convicted of a felony (the other is Iowa), but the governor has the power to unilaterally restore the voting rights of those who have completed their sentences. Beshear has pledged to do exactly this via executive order for citizens convicted of nonviolent felonies. Beshear's promise to use executive power to restore voting rights comes after his father, former Gov. Steve Beshear, tried to do the very same thing as his own tenure drew to a close in 2015. The elder Beshear issued just such an executive order, only to see Bevin reverse it two weeks after being sworn into office. Bevin is also facing a lawsuit over how infrequently he's restored individual voting rights during his four-year term. That's left Kentucky with one of the highest rates of disenfranchisement in the country, banning one out of every 11 adults from voting, including roughly one in four black adults. Andy Beshear's proposal would still leave most citizens convicted of violent felonies permanently disenfranchised, making it less far-reaching than a similar system of executive orders that Democratic governors of Virginia have used since 2016 to make rights restoration automatic upon completion of any felony sentence. However, Beshear's plan would still strike a major blow against the existing lifetime ban that Bevin and Republicans have revived and refused to reform, potentially restoring the voting rights of half or more of those citizens who are currently deprived of their political voice. Read more