Article by Kathleen Pequeño
As Americans, we must also realize and accept the fact that the responsibility of worldwide leadership carries with it a … duty of providing the world with examples of freedom and liberty for all in our daily lives. Any intolerance or discrimination or deprivation of our constitutionally guaranteed rights and privileges resound and reverberate throughout the globe.
--House Report 291, Accompanying HR 6127, the Civil Rights Act of 1957
Should you have to pay to vote? That’s the question winding its way up the Washington state court system this year. Washington’s criminal legal system has created a two-tiered system, where two people charged with the same crime may serve the same prison sentence and be forced to pay the same fines, but one person will have his or her right to vote restored sooner than the other. The difference between these two people? Their ability to pay.
This case is attracting national attention. Let’s ask and answer some basic questions about Washington’s felony disenfranchisement process and the current lawsuit.
What is this voting rights case (Madison v. State of Washington) about?
In 2004 a handful of Washington state residents with previous felony convictions filed a lawsuit against the state because they are currently banned from voting. None of them have been able to gain a “certificate of discharge” because each still owes legal financial obligations (LFO’s), which include court costs and fees associated with incarceration and supervision. The ACLU of Washington is representing them, arguing that although the state has the ability to prescribe any punishment, it has to be cautious about limiting the right to vote and make sure that it is not discriminating against groups of people based on their ability to pay.
What is a certificate of discharge? If someone doesn’t have a certificate of discharge, does that mean they haven’t finished serving their sentence?
A certificate of discharge is issued once a person has served his or her sentence of incarceration and fulfilled all his or her “legal financial obligations.” Unfortunately, people paying fines, court fees, or restitution on a payment plan still lose their right to vote until they have fully paid their debt (plus interest).
A certificate of discharge might be a useful way to gage whether or not someone has completely fulfilled specific legal obligations, but not whether or not a person should be able to exercise his or her full civil rights.
Doesn’t withholding the right to vote act as an incentive to pay court fees and fines?
There is no hard evidence that withholding people’s right to vote will assist them or motivate them to pay off fines, court fees, or restitution. If we want people to be able to pay off fines, fees and restitution, a more logical focus would be on eliminating barriers to employment after incarceration rather than depriving them of a civil right. We know from information collected from a number of prison systems that many people enter prison with real-life needs that have to be met: for health care (including mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment), job skills, and educational needs. A prison system that does not address these needs is not preparing or motivating people to pay off their fines, fees and restitution when they leave prison.
Don’t other states limit the right of former felons to vote?
Although many states have at one time or another deprived people of the right to vote for various reasons (see sidebar), over the last few decades states have generally been removing limits on exercising the right to vote for people with felony convictions. A number of states have rules similar to Washington’s in that there are specific steps a person has to complete to have his or her right to vote restored. But Washington’s voting limitations are somewhat different from other states because they do not ban people based on the nature of the conviction. By making people pay fees and fines completely before enabling them to vote, it acts as a de facto poll tax (a fee historically used to prevent people from voting).
Any person who pays money will get his or her right to vote restored sooner. This flies in the face of a principle that is at this point undisputed: the right to cast a vote in a public election should never be tied to the ability to pay money.
In addition to the fact that more and more states are eliminating felony voting barriers, a recent report from the United Nations Human Rights Commission calls for the United States to “adopt appropriate measures to ensure that states restore voting rights to people who have fully served their sentences and those who have been released on parole.” The report also points out that voting rights exclusions based on previous felony convictions do not meet the requirements of international law and serve no rehabilitative purpose.
What’s the status of the lawsuit?
At this point the plaintiffs (the people who have lost their right to vote, as represented by the ACLU) have won in the King County Superior Court, and the case has moved to the state appeals court. Now we’ll have to wait and see if the state court will uphold a system in which if you want to vote, you have to be able to pay. A decision is expected sometime this summer.