State faulted on felon voting

With Republicans charging that nearly 1,000 illegal ballots from felons tilted the balance in the 2004 governor's race, a civil rights group said yesterday that complex state regulations and official processing errors make it extremely difficult to tell whether a convict actually is barred from voting.

The issue could play an important role in the GOP's legal challenge to the election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, who defeated Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes after a hand recount of more than 2.8 million votes. The trial starts May 23 in Chelan County Superior Court.

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the American Civil Liberties Union says it is not taking sides in the dispute, but wants to offer Judge John Bridges insight into the rules that determine how a convicted felon wins back the right to vote.

The state constitution prohibits felons from voting, but they can regain the privilege if they complete their sentences and pay all fines and restitutions. Allegations of illegal voting by felons make up a major part of the GOP case.

"The state's current system for restoring voting rights is a morass that has led to much confusion among both citizens and election officials as to who is eligible to vote," state ACLU Executive Director Kathleen Taylor said in a statement.

State law calls for authorities to issue felons certificates restoring their voting rights once they have met their obligations, but that process breaks down in many cases, the ACLU says.

Both Democratic lawyer David McDonald and state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance agreed yesterday that it's not easy to tell who is a legal voter and who isn't.

"It is extremely difficult," Vance said. But in months of poring over voter rolls and through court records, the GOP figured out how to do it, he said. "We have tremendous confidence in the final list (of illegal felon voters) we turned over to the court."

That list includes 946 names. The GOP also has filed statistical analyses that argue that if those votes are subtracted from the candidates in proportion to their tally in the affected precincts, then Rossi finishes ahead of Gregoire.

That "proportional reduction" evidence is at the heart of the GOP challenge. Bridges has not ruled on whether he will allow it.

Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, has argued in pretrial hearings that the evidence should be considered, and he reaffirmed that in a filing yesterday.

But McDonald, who says state law does not permit that kind of evidence, disagreed with Reed.

"I think he's probably talking about how it would be nice to change the law, but that's the Legislature's job and not the court's," McDonald said.

Reed did side with the Democrats on another element of the felon issue. To demonstrate an illegal vote, Reed said, it isn't enough for the Republicans to show a felon voted in the November election and that there's no record of a certificate of restitution on file, as the GOP has suggested. Instead, Reed indicates, the Republicans should be required to show that the challenged voters have not discharged their legal obligations.

And Reed also agreed with the Democrats that the GOP can't rely on administrative crediting of voters by elections officials as proof of voting, but must show evidence such as signatures in poll books or on absentee ballot envelopes.

Bridges will hear arguments on these issues May 2.

In support of their proportional-reduction strategy, the Republicans also have filed an academic study of the effects of disenfranchising felons on election outcomes.

In the study of presidential and U.S. Senate races, Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota and Jeff Manza of Northwestern University say that felons would be more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, because they are more likely than other voters to come from such traditional Democratic constituencies as racial minorities and the poor.

No other major industrialized democracy goes nearly as far as the United States in denying voting rights to felons, especially those released from prison, the study says.

P-I reporter Gregory Roberts can be reached at 206-448-8022 or gregoryroberts@seattlepi.com

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