What's on your ballot, Arlington County.

What it doesQuestion: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care; (ii) protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions; and (iii) allow for restrictions on access to abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy except when the patient's health is at risk or the pregnancy cannot survive?

What changesPresent Law Currently, the Virginia Constitution does not explicitly provide to its citizens a right to reproductive freedom nor does it explicitly protect or prohibit certain kinds of health care procedures or decisions. Proposed Law The proposed amendment would add to the Virginia Constitution's Bill of Rights the fundamental right to make and carry out decisions about a person's own reproductive care with only certain, specific exceptions. The proposed amendment specifically allows the state government to pass laws to regulate abortion care in the third trimester of pregnancy, but requires any such law to allow for abortion care when it is medically needed to protect the life and health of the pregnant person or because the fetus is not viable.

What it doesQuestion: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) remove the ban on same-sex marriage; (ii) affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race; and (iii) require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law?

What changesPresent Law Marriages, civil unions, and other legal relationships with the same rights, benefits, and effects of marriage between persons of the same sex or gender are prohibited under Virginia's Constitution. This prohibition is no longer enforceable as a result of the United States Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, but the prohibition on marriages between persons of the same sex or gender remains in the state's Constitution. If the Supreme Court were to overturn its previous decision, that prohibition would be enforceable again. Proposed Law The proposed amendment removes the prohibition on marriages between persons of the same sex or gender from the Virginia Constitution's Bill of Rights. It is replaced with the fundamental right to marry, requiring the state to recognize and treat equally under the law any lawful marriage between two adult persons, regardless of the sex, gender, or race of either person. The proposed amendment prohibits the state from denying a marriage license to two adult persons because of their sex, gender, or race.

What it doesQuestion: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended (i) to provide for the fundamental right to vote in the Commonwealth, (ii) to revise the qualifications of voters so that a person convicted of a felony is not entitled to vote during his period of incarceration but is automatically invested with the right to vote upon release from incarceration, and (iii) to update the existing prohibition on voting by persons found to be mentally incompetent to instead apply to persons who have been found to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting?

What changesPresent Law Virginia's Constitution currently provides that a person who is convicted of any felony loses the right to vote for the rest of their life unless the Governor of Virginia takes administrative action to restore that specific person's right to vote. This is the only means of getting back the right to vote after a felony conviction. The current constitutional provision also imposes a broad restriction, while using outdated terminology, on voting by persons found to be incapacitated. A person who is determined by a court to be incapacitated, regardless of the kind of incapacity, loses the right to vote, and only a court can restore the person's right to vote later. Proposed Law The proposed amendment enshrines in the Constitution the fundamental right of all qualified persons in the Commonwealth to vote. Two exceptions to this right are for persons who are serving a sentence of incarceration for a felony conviction and persons who are determined by a court to not understand the act of voting. Such right cannot otherwise be restricted by laws. Under the proposed amendment, a person who is convicted of a felony loses the right to vote during their period of incarceration.