Voter-list purge targets 99 felons

King County prosecutors are moving to revoke the voter registrations of 99 convicted felons who are believed to have cast illegal votes in the 2004 general election.

The action, announced by Prosecutor Norm Maleng at a news conference yesterday, is the first in a series of purges designed to scrub the voter rolls of felons who shouldn't have been on them in the first place.

Maleng said prosecutors will now focus on more than 800 possible felon voters identified by the state Republican Party. The party says it has found more than 1,100 felons who voted illegally statewide as it searches for possible illegal votes in an effort to have the election of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire overturned.

"This is just the first stage of a process that will continue as we receive and investigate allegations of felons who remain on our voter rolls," Maleng said.

Maleng said the 99 names were among 105 given to election officials by The Seattle Times. A Times investigation published in January concluded that at least 129 convicted felons in King and Pierce counties had cast illegal ballots.

Before publishing, the Times provided a larger list to election officials in both counties, who helped confirm the findings. Some of the names on that list were ultimately excluded from the Times' tally because of doubts about whether a good match existed between voters and felons with the same names and birthdates.

Maleng stressed yesterday that while the felons will be removed from the registration rolls, it is unlikely that any of them will be prosecuted. In order to prosecute, the county would have to prove a felon knew he was breaking the law by casting a vote.

Pierce County has removed 73 felons from its voter-registration list but, like King County, has no plans to prosecute.

Removing felons' names from the registration rolls will not nullify those votes.

The issue of illegal votes is central to a lawsuit filed by the Republican Party seeking to overturn Gregoire's election. After three statewide vote counts, Gregoire was declared the winner over Republican candidate Dino Rossi by 129 votes. The GOP contends that there were enough illegal votes cast — in addition to errors made by election workers — to nullify the election and force a new vote.

Of the 105 names referred to Maleng's office by King County election officials, prosecutors determined four had legally had their voting rights restored. One had a misdemeanor in King County, and prosecutors were attempting to verify a felony in California. A sixth involved a voter whose son had the same name and had been removed from the rolls after a felony conviction, Maleng said.

Maleng said yesterday that his office had sent letters to the last known addresses of the 99 felons, telling them to appear at a hearing March 18 if they intended to challenge their removal from the registration rolls.

One of the felons on The Times' list was Paul Scott Walker, who was convicted and sent to prison for possession of methamphetamine in 2001. Walker, who voted for Rossi, said yesterday he assumed his rights were restored after he served his sentence, and he plans to challenge the county's effort to remove him from the voter rolls.

"They don't tell you anything about those rights. I never knew it was a permanent situation," the 38-year-old Seattle resident said. "I did my time and I think I should be able to come back to society."

Maleng and County Executive Ron Sims both acknowledged — but did not elaborate on — flaws in the system that allowed the felons to either remain on voter rolls or register after their convictions.

Citizens convicted of felonies are automatically stripped of their right to vote. They can petition the court to have the right restored providing they have completed their prison sentence and have paid all of their fines and restitution.

Courts are supposed to notify county election offices of every felony conviction. The election offices, however, have had a hard time matching those names to voter rolls, and often a felon's name is not removed from the voter registration roll. In some instances, felons re-register and county election officials say they don't have the resources to run criminal background checks on every new voter.

In addition, the lack of a reliable statewide system for tracking felons has made it hard for election officials in one county to know if a voter has a conviction in another county. Maleng said that issue is being addressed at the state level.

Sims pointed out that the county purged 600 felons from its list of more than 1 million registered voters before the election. However, Dan Satterberg, Maleng's chief of staff, acknowledged that is just a fraction of the thousands of felons convicted in King County every year.

Satterberg said there is no mechanism in the court system to positively notify felons that they have lost their voting rights.

He contrasted that with the way felons are stripped of their right to own guns. When they are convicted, they sign a document saying they understand they can't own a firearm. If they're ever caught with one, then it is easy to prove they broke the law.

"But there's nothing like that with voting rights now," he said. "That may be one of the reforms you'll be seeing."

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com