NORFOLK, Va. — Nathaniel Hill is working to get his life back on track at age 59. Following a felony conviction back in 2015, Hill served a couple of years in prison and was on probation when he got out.
"There's certain things I'm trying to accomplish like getting a business started and all that stuff," Hill said.
In March 2021, Hill got his voting rights restored. In Virginia, you lose the right to vote when you are convicted of a felony.
Hill said a couple of months later, he had a technical violation of his probation. He said his Facebook account was still active from before he went to prison and while on probation, he was not allowed to have any active social media pages. So, the court labeled it a probation violation, even though Hill said he completely forgot he had the page active after he got out.
He said he didn't think much of it until a year later when he went to renew his license and, during the process, was informed that he was not in the registration system for voting. That's when he said he learned the court system labeled him a "fugitive" even though it was just a probation violation and he didn't have a warrant out for his arrest.
"I got a thing from the voting registration... that I'm not allowed to vote," Hill said. "But I haven't committed a felony or anything, so you're not supposed to get your rights taken away unless you did something worthy of it."
As Hill dug into the problem, he learned through the ACLU organization that he was listed as a newly convicted felon in the voter register system. That error was actually one of thousands for previously convicted felons who had their rights originally restored in Virginia.
13News Now reported that leaders with the Virginia Department of Elections and Virginia State Police credited a computer error for mislabeling a probation violation as a new felony conviction; thus, automatically removing previously convicted felons from the rolls.
At the time, we did not know how many voters were impacted, but recently, the Department of Elections released a press release, stating the office identified nearly 3,400 voters who were wrongfully removed from the rolls. A spokeswoman for the department said the office worked with local registrar offices across the state to reinstate more than 3,000 of those voters.
"These records have been sent to local general registrars who have notified affected voters by mail," the spokeswoman wrote in the press release. "ELECT and Virginia State Police (VSP) worked diligently to review and check each canceled record to ensure all impacted voters are reinstated. As of [Friday], all but approximately 100 of these records have been processed by general registrars. ELECT staff continues to check in with localities to ensure each record is reinstated."
13News Now reached out to all the registrar offices across Hampton Roads to see how many voters locally were impacted. We learned the following cities had a number of people already reinstated:
- Virginia Beach: between 100 to 200 voters reinstated
- Norfolk: approximately 130 voters reinstated
- Chesapeake: approximately 97 voters reinstated
- Gloucester County: approximately one voter reinstated
A spokesperson with the York County Registrar's Office said the staff person who has been handling the reinstatement of voters was not in the office to provide the numbers. Offices in Hampton and Newport News did not respond to our inquiries.
The spokeswoman said impacted voters will receive a written notification that their registration has been reinstated and those voters will be able to vote in the November general election on Tuesday, November 7.
However, as stated in the press release, the spokeswoman said as of Friday, the office is still looking to fully identify and reinstate the rights of more than 100 eligible voters across the state as we quickly approach Election Day.
Hill knows he's one of thousands, and potentially more, voters impacted. He said he doesn't want previously convicted felons like himself to be categorized and left behind just because of an error in the system.
"This is bigger than me and more than just me being affected," Hill said. "This is just a little speed bump. I'm not going to let it be a stop sign to stop me. It's just going to slow me down for what I have to do. So, sometimes, you just can't stop moving and don't take no for an answer."
In a letter to the Office of State Inspector General, the Secretary of Administration wrote that Governor Glenn Youngkin asked the agency to investigate the circumstances surrounding this error.
The letter also asked for the office to "investigate preliminary findings that during the past decades, thousands of Virginians may have been permitted to remain on Virginia's registered voter list, despite being convicted of a new felony following an earlier restoration of their voting rights."