Voting Rights Setback in Washington State

Early this year, voting rights advocates won an important legal victory in against Washington state's felony disenfranchisement law - claiming that it is in violation of the Voting Rights Act because it radically impairs the right to vote of African Americans. 

The argument won out in the court case early this year, but failed upon appeal a few days ago in this decision by Ninth Circuit Count of Appeals. 

It's worth noting that Washington State already has a much more progressive former felon re-enfranchisement laws than Kentucky.  They allow all former felons to vote after they've served their prison time, probation, and/or parole.  That's substantially better than Kentucky's laws would be, even after we manage to pass House Bill 70 - the legislation KFTC supports to restore voting rights to most former felons after they've served their time.

In the nation-wide struggle to restore voting rights to former felons, this is a setback.  But even though the court decided that the case did not have sufficient legal and technical merit, the case made and impact in raising public awareness of the injustice of felony disenfranchisement.  This awareness has made an impact in Washington and elsewhere already.

To view the oral arguments of this court case, please take a look at our earlier entry on this blog.  

As has been noted before, KFTC is exploring the possibility of working alongside the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (who argued this case) to bring a suit up along a very different line of legal argument in Kentucky. 

In other news, Representative Jesse Crenshaw has pre-filed House Bill 70 for the upcoming Legislative Session that begins in January, 2011.