VA Gov. McAuliffe evades court order on felons voting
Not one to let an order from the state’s supreme court hinder his effort to deliver Virginia’s electoral votes to Hillary Clinton, Governor Terry McAuliffe will individually sign executive orders granting felons the vote that they lost by bveing convicted of grave crimes. Alice Ollstein of Think Progress exults:
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) is taking action to restore the voting rights of thousands of ex-offenders in the state after a court decision Friday put them in jeopardy. He’s getting around the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling against him by signing 200,000 individual clemency grants to the state’s ex-offenders to ensure their right to vote in November.
Excuse me: “Ex-offenders”? How can one be an ex-offender? Did the crime disappear from history? Were the people harmed restored to pre-crime states of health, wealth, and mental equanimity? I am sorry, the offenders are still offenders – people who put their own desires and impulses above society’s laws.
So, McAuliffe will evade the court’s orders, and not rely on categorical grants but will individually sign them. This is analogous to drug dealers breaking up their cash bank deposits into sums below $10,000 so that banks don’t have to report them to the feds. That is itself a crime, called structuring. Ask Denny Hastert. Let's call this "structured voting."
McAuliffe will have a might sore wrist if he tries to sign 200,000 documents. The temptation of the auto-pen will be mighty