Saturday, January 15, 2005

The word is "disenfranchisement." (File under "waah waah waah.") Across the country, millions of people who commited felonies in their past are denied the right to vote.  This is a fact.  This country believes in the theory of rehabilitation, ostensibly.  Supposedly, after someone has served their time, paid restitution, served probation, or whatever their sentence, they become members of society again.  That is, except for many many additional consequences of being an ex-felon - felons cannot apply for certain jobs, get gun permits for the most part, cannot receive certain loans and federal benefits, etc, etc.  And they are denied the right to vote.  Right? Well, no.  In many states, including Washington, felons can apply to have their voting rights reinstated.  (For more on the political arguments for and against voter disenfranchisement, go here.)  And why does this matter?  Because Dino Rossi and his Republican buddies have just started poring over the entire state's voting rolls, looking for felons who have cast votes.  This goes along with the whole lousy theme of voter fraud that they've been humming ever since they discovered who actually won the election after all.  One would think that we'd learned to be more careful about crying "fraud" over voter rolls and felons, after the whole damn mess in Florida that begun when Katherine Harris hired a shady company to purge ex-felons, namesakes of ex-felons, brothers-in-law of ex-felons, and - well, lots of nonwhite folk.  But no - apparently the R's are now wading through the names of every criminal in Washington state, looking for cheaters.  I don't think they're looking for fraud anymore. This is hard for me to admit, because I really want to believe the best of people.  But I've given up on Rossi, and I've given on the rest of our state's Republicans.    I don't believe Rossi really thinks he has a snowball's chance in Tempe of winning a new election.  I believe that now, their only goals are casting mud on the election and undermining Gregoire as the new governor.  I don't even think it's accurate to call this a fishing expedition.  It's mud-gathering.  They are planning no less than attacking the entire electoral system of Washington state and casting doubt on the entire gubernatorial election.  Who needs a recount?  Let's just declare that the whole process was corrupt, and cut off the real governor's popular support at the knees. I don't expect that they'll use any of the criminal record stuff as actual evidence in their hearing next Thursday.  If they used it, they'd have to genuinely analyze it - isolate the "felons," make sure they have the right people (the famous step that K. Harris missed), and check whether these have had their rights restored or not.  They're not going to do that.  Their style is more blunt force than pinpoint precision.  By suggesting that even one felon voted in this state - horrors! - they cast our state as the opposite of Florida - a world where criminals and dead people can spell the margin of victory over the votes of decent hardworking folk.  In one way, it's a whole other level of disenfranchisement for those ex-criminals who have cleaned up their act, repaid their debt to society, and rejoined society.  But Rossi doesn't care about little people like this.  He just wants to be the governor, and he doesn't care who he has to step on to get there. 8:15:55 PM     Speak up!  []