US voting rights: 100,000 former felons now able to vote after Kentucky governor lifts lifetime ban

The newly-elected governor of Kentucky has restored voting rights to more than 100,000 people with past criminal convictions, reversing a ban that activists have called an "ugly holdover from our Jim Crow past".The expansion was made official on Thursday by Democrat Andy Beshear, who narrowly defeated the state’s previous governor during an election last month that attracted the intense attention of Donald Trump and the national press. The executive order automatically restores the right to vote to non-violent offenders.