"Modern Poll Tax" is Challenged in WA

Ex-felons deserve the right to vote

from the ACLU of WA

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington in late October asked the courts to restore the vote to ex-felons in Washington who have served their prison terms but are denied the right to vote solely because they owe money. The lawsuit was filed in King County Superior Court on behalf of five citizens from around the state who would like to vote but are unable to do so.

"Citizens should never be stripped of their basic rights, and the right to vote is as fundamental a right as there is in a democracy. Yet even when people have completed their prison time and have been released back into society, our state puts up barriers to voting-barriers that are based strictly on economics. Washington must end this modern form of the poll tax," said ACLU-WA Executive Director Kathleen Taylor. "The State should not hold hostage the right to vote in order to collect legal system debts," Taylor added.

Under current state law, even though individuals have finished their prison terms, they are not allowed to vote until they completely pay a variety of monetary debts to the legal system that are imposed at sentencing. The "legal financial obligations" can include docket and filing fees, court costs, restitution, and costs of incarceration. Interest on these legal system debts accrues at the exorbitant rate of 12 percent a year. According to Washington's own statistics, more than 90 percent of felony defendants are indigent at the time of charging. It is no surprise that many ex-felons find it difficult to pay these financial assessments upon release.

Sadly, the problem is widespread and hits people of color especially hard. Overall, more than 150,000 people in Washington cannot vote because of a prior felony conviction, according to The Sentencing Project, a public policy organization. In 2002, according to the Department of Corrections, 46,500 ex-felons in Washington were unable to vote just because of outstanding "legal financial obligations." Disenfranchisement affects about 3.7 percent of eligible voters in Washington--almost double the national average. And, given the racial disparity in Washington's incarceration rate, the state disenfranchises almost 25 percent of all adult African-American males.

"Having the rights and responsibilities of citizenship is an important part of successfully re-entering society. Yet our current laws keep former felons from exercising the most basic right of citizenship," said the ACLU's Kathleen Taylor.

The ACLU's lawsuit claims that Washington's law violates guarantees of the right to vote in both the Washington and United States constitutions. The lawsuit does not seek to eliminate any debts to the legal system or change criminal sentences. It only asks that the right to vote not be limited by one's financial ability. The state has other means to pursue former felons who fail to satisfy their legal financial obligations.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Dan Madison, Sebrina Moore, and Larence Bolden of King County, Beverly DuBois of Spokane County, and Dannielle Garner of Snohomish County.

Handling the case for the ACLU are Peter Danelo, Molly Terwilliger, Darwin Roberts, and Darin Sands of the firm Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe, ACLU-WA staff attorney Aaron Caplan, and Neil Bradley of the ACLU Voting Rights Project.