Preparing To Steal An Election

Posted on by

Terry McAuliffe has long been associated with the Clinton family and their political aspirations. Now, as governor of Virginia, he is attempting to make sure that Hillary Clinton carries that state in November.

National Review posted an article today about Governor McAuliffe’s efforts.

The article reports:

In what is likely an unconstitutional state action seemingly calculated to ensure that the purple state of Virginia goes blue in the November election, Governor Terry McAuliffe (D.) signed an order on Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons in Virginia, including those convicted of murder, armed robbery, rape, sexual assault, and other violent crimes. The order also restores their right to sit on a jury, become a notary, and even serve in elected office.

McAuliffe believes that ex-felons can be trusted to make decisions in the ballot booth and the jury box but apparently not to own a gun. He draws the line at restoring their Second Amendment rights; that would be a bridge too far.

So what is the problem with this? First of all, the Governor does not make the laws–the legislature does.

The article further explains:

Having a waiting period, examining each ex-felon’s application for restoration of rights carefully and individually, and differentiating between violent and nonviolent crimes is exactly the system that Virginia had — at least until Friday’s order. In a three-page summary released by the governor’s office, McAuliffe asserts that any claim that he doesn’t have the authority to grant a blanket restoration of rights is “far-outside the weight of constitutional authority across the nation and would read into the text of the Virginia Constitution words that simply are not there.” This is just legal gibberish — the weight of constitutional authority “across the nation” has no bearing on interpreting the Virginia constitution. McAuliffe is reading into that constitution authority he does not have.
The article goes on to explain that this action does not conform to the Virginia Constitution. It overturns a provision that has been in the Virginia Constitution since the Civil War-era. It will be interesting if the Virginia Legislature overturns his action.