GOP's request for criminal list raises concern

By CHRIS McGANN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER   15 January 2005

Comparing voter lists with the state's criminal history database, as Republicans are doing in their attempt to nullify the gubernatorial election, infringes on voter privacy and could have a "chilling" effect on voter turnout, Democrats said yesterday.

"Exercising the right to vote should never be an activity that triggers a criminal investigation," said Jenny Durkan, a lawyer for Washington State Democrats.

That's nonsense, Republicans said. They say they're simply using information already available to determine the extent to which felons illegally cast ballots in the election, which Democrat Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes in a hand recount of nearly 2.9 million votes.

This week, lawyers for the state GOP and candidate Dino Rossi, who narrowly won the original count and the manual machine recount, subpoenaed a list of all felony convictions on the Washington State Patrol's Criminal History Records Information Database, a comprehensive criminal history of 1.2 million people.

"This could have a chilling effect in a number of communities who don't understand the terminology," Durkan said. "They may believe that their right to vote hinges upon whether they paid traffic tickets."

She said the whole idea smacks of bygone days when some states attempted to deter people from going to the polls with the threat of police investigation.

Capt. Jeff DeVere, spokesman for the State Patrol, said the state would comply with the Republicans' request.

"This is public information, available on our Web site," DeVere said.

DeVere said Republicans originally requested background checks on 800,000 people He referred them to the Web site, but DeVere said the GOP balked at the $10 per person background-check fee.

  
 
Republicans said it was more a matter of having to enter information for each person manually.

DeVere said the state will only release a list of those people with felony convictions to Republicans.

Julya Hampton, legal program director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said her biggest concern is that the state database is incomplete and inaccurate.

The list is not automatically d in cases where people have had their right to vote restored.

"The only way to verify someone who has had their right to vote restored is to look at their court record," said Peter Schalestock, legal coordinator for the Rossi Campaign and the state GOP. "We will do that before we go to court. We will take every step possible to ensure that the people we name are actually ineligible."

Republicans intend to cross-reference that list with voter lists to find out if felons voted in the election.

"In many ways this appears to be just another attempt to muddy the waters and throw a cloud of suspicion on the election," Durkan said. "The Republican Party and Mr. Rossi have repeated in many forms that felons have voted in this election, yet they have not provided proof of a single such vote. They could have done so when they filed their claim in court; they chose not to do so."

Schalestock said Republicans do have the names of felons who voted.

"Part of the reason we want this database is to verify the information we (have)," he said.

In other election news, King County Councilman David Irons said yesterday he'll propose changing the way elections are administered in the state's largest county. Irons wants an elected auditor to be in charge instead of an appointed official.

King County, which has been sharply criticized by Republicans for mishaps in handling ballots during the election, is the only one of the state's 39 counties that runs its elections with an appointed official instead of an elected auditor.