Fairfax County residents who head to the polls for early voting on Friday, Sept. 18, will do so under new state rules that restore voting eligibility to thousands of Virginians with past felony convictions.

The Virginia Department of Elections issued guidance this week limiting disqualifying crimes to just three: murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. The ACLU of Virginia estimated that roughly 90% of the approximately 250,000 Virginians previously barred from voting because of felony convictions are now eligible.

The timing matters locally. Fairfax County's Nov. 3 ballot includes a constitutional amendment that would change the Virginia Constitution to automatically restore voting rights to people upon release from incarceration. The other two proposed amendments on the ballot address reproductive rights and same-sex marriage.

How it got here

The change stems from King v. O'Bannon, a federal lawsuit filed in 2023 by plaintiffs Tati King and Toni Johnson. The ACLU of Virginia, Protect Democracy and WilmerHale represented them.

U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney ruled in January 2026 that Virginia could not strip voting rights for any felony conviction beyond 11 offenses recognized at common law in 1870 under the Virginia Readmission Act, a Reconstruction-era law. Those 11 felonies included arson, burglary, larceny, robbery, rape, sodomy, mayhem, escape from prison, manslaughter, murder and suicide.

Attorney General Jay Jones' office responded by compiling a list of 284 modern-day crimes it argued matched those 11 categories. The list included illegally using tear gas, as ACLU of Virginia legal director Eden Heilman pointed out, "even though tear gas was not invented in 1870."

Gibney rejected that approach. In an Aug. 19 opinion, he wrote that the state had lagged, "sometimes egregiously so," in implementation. He reaffirmed that Virginia may disenfranchise people convicted of one of the 11 common-law felonies but may not use any other felony conviction as grounds for disenfranchisement.

The Department of Elections then removed the 284-crime list from its website, VPM News reported, and replaced it with guidance stating that only the three crimes qualify. The department said those offenses "exactly match the elements" of crimes on the 1870 list.

Months of confusion

The path to clarity was rocky. By the time Virginia held its August primary elections, some newly eligible voters sat out because of unclear guidance. Others remained stuck in registration limbo.

In late August, Heilman urged the state to act before the Nov. 3 election, telling WHRO it was "critically important for these folks to be able to have their voices heard, especially when there's a constitutional amendment on the ballot that addresses rights restoration."

Gov. Abigail Spanberger separately restored voting rights to 66,000 Virginians with past felony convictions this summer, the Virginia Mercury reported. Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin had shifted the restoration process to an individualized petition system with little clarity about the criteria used to grant or deny requests.

The legal teams representing King and Johnson issued a joint statement on Tuesday, Sept. 15, calling the updated guidance an "enormous step towards ending felony disenfranchisement in Virginia."

VPM News reported that the Department of Elections had not responded to multiple interview requests, and a spokesperson for Jones' office had not commented on the latest guidance as of Sept. 15.

Fairfax County early voting runs through Saturday, Oct. 31. The voter registration deadline is Friday, Oct. 23. Residents can find early voting locations and hours on the Fairfax County elections website.