Washblog

Willie's response is inspirational.  Since he can't vote, he's committed to registering 100 voters to vote in his place.  Willie calls his one man campaign "-1 = +100".  He's hoping to involve other former felons and is looking for help to spread the effort.

In Vermont, felons get to vote, even while in prison.  The idea is that it helps keep them engaged in society.  This is similar to the Finnish approach to reforming criminals.  I wholely endorse this approach.

In Oregon, everyone gets to vote, except when you're in the custody of the state (in jail).  It's a clean distinction, easy to administrate.

In Washington, due to changes made in the 90s, former felons have to pay off their restitution and fees, then jump through a lot of legal hurdles (like having your sentencing judge sign your discharge papers).  Incredibly, a 12% interest is levied beginning the day of sentencing.  In practical terms, that means most former felons won't ever get to vote again.

The ACLU helps felons as able.  To get a sense of the scale of the problem, roughly 16,000 felons were released last year, each who will have to work to restore their voting rights.

There's a bunch of other hurdles.  Jennifer Shaw (Legislative Director) brought some really good flow charts to illustrate the complexity.  It's incredible.

Also, and most importantly, the ACLU is lobbying to change our laws to be like the Oregon model.  That specific legislation didn't pass this year.  On a positive note, separate legislation was passed to study the problem.  Shaw is optimistic that once the scale and impact of the problem is understood, and publicized, people will realize that we need to fix it.

Justice Works
http://www.justiceworks.info/

Voting Rights
http://www.aclu-wa.org/issues/index.cfm?issue_id=12

Ex-felons Fight for Vote (by Cyndey Gillis)
http://www.realchangenews.org/2006/2006_02_08/exfelons.html