If you didn’t think we’re in Phase 3 of a socialist revolution where a human wave will be used to overwhelm elections to get to Phase 4, you’re missing everything that’s going on. Along with illegal alien voters, felons are part of a larger strategy. In Washington state, which already had a razor-thin governor’s race stolen a few years ago (link):
Washington state felons should have voting rights, federal court rules
A federal appeals court on Tuesday, finding the state’s criminal justice system “infected” with racial discrimination, tossed out Washington’s law banning prison inmates from voting.
By Jonathan Martin
Seattle Times staff reporter
A federal appeals court on Tuesday tossed out Washington’s law banning incarcerated felons from voting, finding the state’s criminal-justice system is “infected” with racial discrimination.
The surprising ruling, by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, said the law violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act by disenfranchising minority voters.
The decision is the first in the country’s federal appeals courts to equate a prohibition against voting by incarcerated felons with practices outlawed under the federal Voting Rights Act, such as poll taxes or literacy tests.
But Washington’s 37,000 felons in prison or on community supervision should not yet break out their voter pamphlets. State Attorney General Rob McKenna said he will appeal – either back to a larger 9th Circuit panel, or directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The two-judge majority apparently was persuaded by the plaintiffs’ argument that reams of social-science data filed in the case showed minorities in Washington are stopped, arrested and convicted in such disproportionate rates that the ban on voting by incarcerated felons is inherently discriminatory.
The decision, written by Judge A. Wallace Tashima, said the studies “speak to a durable, sustained indifference in treatment faced by minorities in Washington’s criminal justice system – systemic disparities which cannot be explained by ‘factors independent of race.’ ”
McKenna said the ruling, if upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, would apply to all 48 states that ban voting by felons in prison or on supervision. But he disputed the research and the court’s legal reasoning.
“What the 9th Circuit did here is misapply the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “They just got it wrong.”
The case was first filed in Spokane in 1996 by Muhammad Shabazz Farrakhan, who was serving a three-year sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla for a series of felony-theft convictions. Ultimately, five other inmates, all members of racial minority groups, joined as plaintiffs.
The case has twice bounced between district court and the appeals court.
It was built on research by University of Washington sociologists who found that blacks are 70 percent more likely – and Latinos and Native Americans 50 percent more likely – than whites to be searched in traffic stops.
In Virginia, which just had a Governor’s race won by a large percentage (59-41) but less than 350,000 votes, the ability to get an additional (up-to) 300,000 is very meaningful (link):
Virginia civil-rights and faith groups yesterday called on outgoing Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to issue an executive order to automatically restore voting rights to about 300,000 state residents with felony convictions.
“Every state in the nation, except Virginia and Kentucky, has figured out how to rid itself of this shameful and counterproductive legacy of Jim Crow,” said Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.
“In states where legislators have dragged their feet, governors have acted through executive orders, and that’s what we’re asking Tim Kaine to do before he leaves office.”
Joining the ACLU were theNAACP Virginia State Conference, Virginia League of Women Voters, Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, Virginia Poverty Law Center, Virginia Organizing Project, STEP-UP Inc., Virginia CURE, Northern Virginia Coalition and The Rutherford Institute.
Demonstrations are planned for today at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, and tomorrow at Ninth and Broad streets near the state Capitol in Richmond.
The groups have met with Kaine administration officials in recent weeks to press their case.
Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell takes office Jan. 16 and has promised to further tighten Virginia’s policy on rights restoration.
Still, Kaine has balked at issuing an executive order, saying his legal advisers’ analysis of Virginia law suggests he could not do a “blanket restoration — I have to restore people by name,” he explained in early December.
Yesterday he said his administration continues to work “diligently” on the issue.
But a blanket restoration could be difficult in Virginia. The state has no centralized record-keeping that would allow it to know when a felon has served his or her full sentence.
Officials also said that local registrars could have differing opinions on what constitutes a nonviolent felony and apply the law differently.
Kaine’s administration and that of his predecessor, former Gov. Mark R. Warner, have tried to expedite the process for restoring the rights of people convicted of nonviolent felonies. Such people must have served their time and remained out of trouble for three years to be considered.
During his term, Kaine has restored the rights of more than 4,300 felons, substantially more than any previous governor.
I wonder (academically) if their 2nd Amendment rights get restored as well?