Virginia votes in November 2026 on whether losing your freedom should also mean losing your vote. Sheba Williams already knows what the answer costs.
Williams, 47, lost her vote after a 2004 conviction she maintains was wrongful, and did not get it back until 2013. That means she sat out 2008.
“This was a historic moment for the Black community,” she said. “I won’t say that I agreed with all his policies, but it was historic to know that a Black person could lead the country. And I couldn’t participate. That’s something that has stuck with me for years.”
In 2016 she founded Nolef Turns, which works with people coming home from incarceration and runs civic education and advocacy training.
In 2024, 264,000 Virginians could not vote because of a felony conviction. Of those, 121,000 were Black, close to half. One in ten Black voting-eligible Virginians was shut out, at a rate 3.5 times higher than everyone else.
The amendment would write voting into the state constitution as a fundamental right, restore it automatically on release, and take the decision out of the governor’s hands. That last part is the point. Governor Spanberger restored rights to 100,000 Virginians in August 2026. A different governor could restore none.
“We don’t know what we’re going to get from one administration to the next,” Williams said. “And anytime there’s not a reliable system, anytime there’s not a reliable process, there’s a problem.”
She spent nine years waiting on one.
