INSTITUTE INDEX: The partisan battle over voting rights for ex-felons in Virginia

Number of Virginians with past felony convictions who had their voting rights restored on a case-by-case basis last month by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) after Republicans and state Supreme Court justices blocked his broader clemency push: 13,000

Number of former felons who would have had their voting rights restored under McAuliffe's original plan: more than 200,000

Percent of those former felons whose crimes were nonviolent: 79

Average number of years since their release and completion of probation or parole: 11.1

Percent of people who would have benefited from McAuliffe's original plan who are African-American: 45.9

Percent of Virginia's overall population that is African-American: 19.4

Portion of African Americans in Virginia who are disenfranchised due to felony convictions: more than 1/5

After initially barring felons from voting during the Civil War, year in which Virginia expanded those restrictions as part of a package that included poll taxes and literacy tests: 1902

Year in which a Virginia state senator said the expanded restrictions would "eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than five years, so that in no single county of the Commonwealth will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government": 1906

Percent of adult Virginians who support McAuliffe's efforts to re-enfranchise ex-felons: 61

Date on which Virginia state Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment Jr. (R-James City), who served as one of the plaintiffs in the legal challenge to McAuliffe's rights restoration plan, proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would bar felons convicted of violent crimes from being able to vote again: 9/1/2016

Besides Virginia, number of other states with constitutions that disenfranchise all individuals with felony convictions for life: 3*

In the past two decades, number of states that have taken legislative or executive action to expand voting rights for people with past criminal convictions: 20

* The others are Florida, Kentucky and Iowa. Virginia's constitution allows the governor to restore voting rights to ex-felons on a case-by-case basis.

(Click on figure to go to source.)