Report: Virginia’s Gov. McAuliffe used auto pen to grant voting rights to 60,000 felons

by WorldTribune Staff, November 7, 2016

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe used an autopen to sign thousands of letters granting voting rights to felons, enough to put the swing state in Hillary Clinton’s column, a report said.

“McAuliffe sought to allow all of Virginia’s estimated 200,000 felons to vote, but state courts said each individual felon’s circumstances must be weighed,” according to the Daily Caller report. “To get around that, McAuliffe used a mechanical autopen to rapidly sign thousands of letters, as if he had personally reviewed them.”

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. /Getty Images
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. /Getty Images

The report said as many as 60,000 felons were granted voting rights by McAuliffe.

Additionally, those who received McAuliffe’s letter also got voter registration forms with pre-paid return postage. No others in Virginia received such a service.

McAuliffe — who managed Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign — “churned out five times as many letters before the registration deadline than publicly claimed,” the report said.

Virginia has seen several recent elections decided by far fewer than 60,000 votes. The 2014 U.S. Senate race, for example, was decided by only 17,000 votes, while the attorney general’s race came down to just165 votes.

Virginia officials told the Daily Caller they had no idea McAuliffe had signed so many more letters than previously reported. Officers of the state Board of Elections were kept in the dark, the report said.

Clara Belle Wheeler, vice-chairman of the Virginia Board of Elections said the late flood of restorations had to be processed by registrars who were already overwhelmed by failing computer systems.

She also said that, while McAuliffe claimed to only be restoring voting rights of felons who had completed their sentences, his use of the autopen might not satisfy the court’s specific vetting requirement.

“I think the General Assembly caucus that brought suit made it abundantly clear that you must look at each person and evaluate each individual person’s record: have they served their time, have they paid their restoration if it was due, have they finished their probation, are they citizens, have they not been arrested for some other crime,” Wheeler said.

“The code of Virginia requires that each person is treated as an individual rather than as a bulk because each individual has a different set of circumstances and those should be evaluated,” she said.

Meanwhile, as McAuliffe was busy seeking to shore up the felon vote for Clinton, President Barack Obama seemed to say that the government would look the other way if illegal aliens in the U.S. were to cast votes for the Democratic candidate.

In an interview with the Latin-oriented YouTube channel mitu, actress Gina Rodriguez asked Obama: “Many of the millennials, Dreamers, undocumented citizens – and I call them citizens because they contribute to this country – are fearful of voting. So if I vote, will Immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family and deport us?”

Obama responded: “Not true, and the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself. And there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over and people start investigating, etc. The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential.”

Obama’s answer left Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business Network completely stunned.

“I can’t believe that I heard what I heard,” Cavuto said on his broadcast. “The president isn’t even questioning whether the person who is an illegal is voting, outside of reminding people that if you’re a citizen, you vote. But it’s very clear that the question that is being asked was about illegals voting and afraid that they might be reported to Border Security. You’re illegal. You cannot vote.”

“The President of the United States is saying, ‘Don’t worry, no one will be spying on you, catching you,’ ” Cavuto added.

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