Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who leaves office in January, today encouraged people with nonviolent felony convictions who have paid their debt to society to apply to have their voting rights restored. Speaking on his monthly call-in radio show on WTOP in Washington, Kaine noted that both he and his predecessor as governor, Mark R. Warner, have restored the rights of more Virginians than any of the previous governors of the commonwealth combined.

The failure on the part of state election officials to mail absentee ballots to overseas servicemen and residents in a sufficiently timely fashion violated federal law. District Court Judge Richard Williams has correctly insisted that the votes be counted. They will make no difference to last years’ presidential outcome, but that is beside the point. The votes should be counted to uphold the rights of the citizens abroad and to ensure the integrity of the electoral system.

Conservatives have been joyously stoking partisan outrage over an Election Day case of voter intimidation in Philadelphia. But their schadenfreude shouldn’t obscure the importance of an episode over which outrage seeems justified. The incident concerns members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, who showed up at a polling place in paramilitary uniforms and carrying nightsticks. In January, the Justice Department filed a voting-rights lawsuit against the group—only to withdraw it later after none of the defendants appeared in court to answer the charges. A political appointee of the Obama administration apparently overruled career lawyers who had wanted to pursue the case. Now the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights—an institution nobody would consider a Fox News fan club—has decided to look into the matter.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on a key component of the Voting Rights Act shows how judicial conservatism can redound to the benefit of political liberalism. The case concerned a challenge to an extension of the requirement that various states and localities submit election-law changes to the federal government for review. The requirement means, for instance, that any time a locality in Virginia wants to move a polling place, it has to ask permission first. “Preclearance,“ as it is called, explains why Richmond’s switch to a strongmayor system did not adopt a simple majority vote, but rather demands that a candidate win a majority in five of the city’s nine councilmanic districts. At the time, it was thought that a citywide, at-large system would not win Justice Department approval.

The other day, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the most important voting rights case to come along since Bush v. Gore. The Court’s decision, expected this summer, will have a lasting impact on our democracy. The case involves a small municipal utility district in Texas that wants to avoid having to comply with certain requirements under the Voting Rights Act. But the Voting Rights Act doesn’t permit the district to be exempted. So in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, the district has argued that if it isn’t entitled to the exemption, then the Voting Rights Act is an unconstitutional infringement on states’ rights because the district has never discriminated against anyone in the voting process.

Hasan Kalem Zarif found God and an education in prison. Then Gov. Timothy M. Kaine restored his voting rights.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine last year restored the voting rights of a record 1,500 felons, including dozens with violent pasts. Many were signed up in time to vote in the presidential election. Bernard L. Henderson Jr., senior deputy secretary of the commonwealth, said several voting groups inquired about the time limit for registering to vote—29 days before the Nov. 4 election. The office set an Aug. 15 deadline and was able to accommodate about 1,000 in time to register, he said.

Racialmandering At a moment when both major political parties are headed by African-Americans, the Supreme Court has tried once again to recalibrate with ever-more exquisite precision the intricacies of a law dating back almost to Jim Crow. Bartlett v. Strickland concerned the drawing of a legislative district in North Carolina. A splintered court came down on nearly every side of the question; the majority held that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not compel states to draw districts intended to benefit minority candidates in areas where minorities make up less than 50 percent of the population.

Virginia has among the harshest laws nationwide. Offenders with felony convictions automatically lose the right to vote, although there is a procedure for restoring it under certain conditions.