State will appeal prison-voting ruling to Supreme Court

Washington state will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn a surprising federal court ruling that tossed out the state's 120-year-old prohibition against voting by incarcerated felons, Attorney General Rob McKenna said today.

The ruling, handed down Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S> Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, found that Washington's criminal-justice system was so "infected" with racial discrimination that a ban on felon voting violated civil-rights protections.

The state hoped to have the case heard during the U.S. Supreme Court's fall session, McKenna told reporters at a hastily-arranged news conference at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Meanwhile, the state also plans to file by next week a motion to stall enactment of the court ruling. McKenna said courts routinely grant such motions if a case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court ruling involved a 1996 lawsuit filed by a group of black, Latino and Native American prison inmates who were disenfranchised because of felony convictions.

Plaintiff's attorneys relied on research by University of Washington sociologists that found large disparities in arrest and conviction data between minorities and whites. Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans make up 12 percent of the state's population, but account for 36 percent of Washington's prison inmates.

If upheld, the ruling would allow Washington's 18,500 prison inmates and 19,000 felons under Department of Corrections community supervision to vote. Currently, felons cannot vote until they've finished their prison terms and supervision.

Secretary of State Sam Reed said county election officials had called him this morning, anxious about the mechanics of handling ballots sent in from prisons. "It would be fairly difficult for counties to implement this quickly," he said. "We would need time to fully implement this in a thoughtful manner."

McKenna, who said he will try the case himself if it is accepted by the Supreme Court, disputed the court's interpretation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

That act, passed to remedy pervasive discrimination, requires the "totality of the circumstances of the local electoral process" be examined in order to decide if a violation has occurred. McKenna said the court ruling did not take into account the "totality of circumstances" in Washington, including voting rates by minority voters.

McKenna, who left shortly after the news conference for a trip to Israel with other Attorneys General, said he expected strong support from other states.

Three other federal appeals courts have ruled in the opposite to the 9th Circuit, McKenna said. "It's time for the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve this split between the circuits."