Ninth Circuit Tosses Voting Ban for Felons

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals "overturned Washington's state ban on voting by convicted felons Tuesday in a ruling that could extend ballots to prisoners in other states where studies showed racial bias in the criminal justice system." More on the decision in Farrakhan v. Gregoire:

In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the Washington law violates the federal Voting Rights Act because evidence showed discrimination against minorities at every level of the state's legal system: arrest, bail, prosecution and sentencing.

If the ruling survives, it will be binding in the circuit's other eight states, including California, which denies voting rights to 283,000 convicted felons in prison or on parole, according to a report from the nonprofit Sentencing Project.

As far as precedent goes, the Chronicle notes that the ruling is the first "by an appeals court to overturn a state's prohibition on voting by felons, which exists in different versions in every state except Maine and Vermont." In typical Ninth Circuit fashion, it is noted that "[t]hree other federal appellate courts have ruled the Voting Rights Act does not apply to bans on voting by felons." Please click here for the opinion.

What happens from here? Most initial commentators said the Ninth Circuit would rehear the case en banc, a decision made if a majority of the circuit judges in active service agree to a rehearing. (A party can also petition for a hearing en banc.) However, it looks like the Washington Attorney General is appealing directly to the Supreme Court. Roger Clegg at Bench Memos says the Supreme Court will likely grant review.

A sobering number from the Seattle Times: "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." It is also important to note that the Washington law provides the "provisional restoration of the voting rights of felons upon their release from prison or from community custody." It is not like these people are disenfranchised for life—rather just while they are in prison. Apparently, that was still too draconian for the Ninth Circuit.