Felons say vote ban is ‘poll tax’

President Bush has lost at least one vote in Eastern Washington. So have Dino Rossi, George Nethercutt and the other Republican candidates.

A lifelong GOP supporter, Beverly DuBois would readily vote along party lines this election season.

As a convicted felon, however, she’s not allowed to vote.

DuBois spent a year in the Ferry County Jail for growing marijuana. Although she did her time, the Riverside resident has yet to pay $1,800 in fines and is therefore barred by state law from voting.

DuBois is on a fixed income and can afford to pay only $10 a month toward her fines. At that rate, and with a 12 percent annual interest, the 48-year-old will be in her late 60s by the time she can vote again.

To regain their right to vote sooner, DuBois and four felons from the West Side are suing the state. Filed in King County last week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, the lawsuit is asking the courts to restore the vote to felons who have served their prison terms but still owe money.

“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,” said Kathleen Taylor, executive director of the ACLU of Washington. In a press release, Taylor noted that the plaintiffs aren’t allowed to vote simply because of their economic situation.

“Washington must end this modern form of the poll tax,” she said, referring to the tax that was once required for voting and designed to disenfranchise blacks. “The state should not hold hostage the right to vote in order to collect legal system debts.”

Most states automatically grant voting rights to felons once they have completed their prison terms and paid restitution. But many released offenders don’t have the money to pay debts incurred at sentencing, said the ACLU. According to 2002 statistics from the Department of Corrections, 46,500 convicted felons in Washington state were unable to vote because they had yet to pay their fines.

“Having served my time, I don’t understand why I can’t vote,” said DuBois, who, until her conviction, was also a member of the National Rifle Association.

In March 2002, DuBois was arrested in Tum Tum for growing 20 marijuana plants. Although she insists that she was only housesitting for a friend, she was eventually convicted and sentenced to a year in jail for the manufacturing and distribution of marijuana.

Her legal financial obligation to the state was originally $1,610, which she started paying after she was released from jail in July 2003. But with interest accruing, and since her payments have been so minimal, DuBois now owes $1,838.

DuBois gets $484 a month in Supplemental Security Income because of a disability. Three years ago, she lost partial use of her hands after a spinal cord injury.

After all she’s been through, “it would mean so much to me to be able to vote again,” said DuBois, who lives in a trailer with her dog and cat.

The lawsuit isn’t asking the courts to eliminate ex-felon’s debts to the legal system or change criminal charges. “It only asks that the right to vote not be limited by one’s financial ability,” stated a press release from the ACLU.

The current state law “is absurd,” said DuBois. “This fine will never get paid off. I’ll never be able to vote again. That doesn’t seem right to me.”

Besides barring convicted felons from voting based on their ability to pay restitution, the state law and others like it affect people of color at a disproportionate rate. A 1998 Human Rights Watch study reported that 1.4 million African American men – 13 percent of the nation’s black adult male population – have lost their right to vote because of their felony convictions and the inability to pay court fines.

A federal lawsuit similar to the ACLU suit was filed in 1997 by students from Gonzaga University’s School of Law. The suit, filed on behalf of six convicts, uses a different argument, however. Students from University Legal Assistance have argued that a disproportionate number of minorities are charged with felonies. Because of this, the suit alleges, the Washington state law is racist and violates the Voting Rights Act, which was sought by the late Martin Luther King Jr. and signed into law in 1965.

Earlier this year, they convinced the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that evidence of racial bias in the state’s criminal justice system should be considered in determining if state law meets the standards of the Voting Rights Act. The GU case is now under consideration for review by the U.S. Supreme Court.