Washington removes felons from state voting rolls

Washington state canceled the registrations of nearly 850 voters Thursday, saying they were felons who are barred by state law from casting a ballot.

Forty were removed from the rolls in Spokane County. But by late afternoon Thursday, county elections officials were acknowledging that one of those voters likely was improperly bumped from the list and will have to be reinstated despite the safeguards that state and local officials say should prevent such errors.

That voter, Sharon Curry, was not convicted of a felony. Rather, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1999 stabbing death of her daughter. She remains under state supervision, but that wouldn’t bar her from voting under state voting laws.

“We are as thorough as we can possibly be,” Secretary of State Sam Reed said. “Every once in a while, this is going to happen.”

What happened in this case was that in late April, elections officials in Reed’s office compared names and birth dates from the state voter registration database with names and birth dates of felons in custody or under state supervision in the state Department of Corrections database.

They got 900 matches, and sent each county a list of the people in that jurisdiction for further investigation. The state also sent a letter to each person on the list, saying they were about to lose their voting rights.

The state or counties got replies from 52 people who said, essentially, “you’ve got the wrong person.” Most were cases in which two people share the same name and birth date. That was the case with one man on the list in Spokane County. Another contacted the state to say he had been tried, but not convicted.

But neither state nor county elections officials heard from Curry, and neither checked the files to verify her conviction status. Tried in 2000, a jury ruled Curry was in a drug-induced psychosis, and therefore not guilty by reason of insanity, in her daughter’s death.

She was released from Eastern State Hospital in 2003, but her request to end court supervision was rejected by another jury in 2005. That could be why she is on a Corrections Department supervision list, voting officials speculated.

County Elections Manager Paul Brandt said a person wouldn’t lose the right to vote from either court proceeding. People who are so mentally ill that they require a guardian can lose their voting rights, but that’s a separate court proceeding, and the county is usually notified immediately by the court.

They have no such notice for Curry. If there’s no other reason to cancel her registration, “we would have to reinstate her,” Brandt said.

Reed said the Curry case is the first possible mistake he’s heard about, but added it was just released Thursday. It’s an example of why “we have to continue to be vigilant,” he said.

Curry could not be reached for comment. County elections records show she has a good voting record, having cast a ballot in nearly every election since 2001.

Her situation came to light during a check by The Spokesman-Review of how many felons on the Spokane County list had voted recently. Of the 40, a total of five, including Curry, voted in last year’s general election.

If they had been convicted at that time – something that can’t be determined from the state’s list – they voted illegally.