State boots 848 felons from voting rolls…

Even as the state battles in court over whether it can ban some felons from voting, it’s booting other felons from the rolls.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Sam Reed announced that Washington has cancelled the voter registrations of 848 felons.

“We are upholding the law,” Reed said in a press release. The 848, he said, are either incarcerated or on probation.

Lawmakers four years ago approved creation of a statewide voter registration database, merging information that was previously kept by the state’s 39 counties. By comparing registrations, the state has previously scrubbed 55,000 names from the list — most of which were people who’d registered in one county, then moved and registered again in another one.