Felons vote Democratic, national study says

The Tacoma News Tribune ^ | May 10, 2005 | KENNETH P. VOGEL

[Stoat]

Felons vote Democratic, national study says

KENNETH P. VOGEL; The News Tribune
Last updated: May 10th, 2005 07:31 AM

If disenfranchised felons had been allowed to vote, they would have swung the 2000 presidential race to Al Gore, according to a national study Republicans are touting in their fight to overturn Christine Gregoire’s victory in last fall’s governor’s race.

The study posits that since racial minorities and the poor – groups that tend to vote for Democrats– make up a disproportionate number of felons, a hypothetical felon voting bloc would be so overwhelmingly Democratic it could swing national and statewide elections.

On average, 74 percent of felons would have voted Democratic in presidential and U.S. Senate elections dating back to 1972, according to the study’s analysis of demographic and voting data.

Of Democratic presidential candidates, the study predicts that Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 re-election campaign would have gotten the highest percentage of felon votes, at 85.4 percent. Jimmy Carter’s failed 1980 re-election would have gotten the lowest, at 66.5 percent.

A state GOP-funded study by Jonathan Katz, a political science professor at the California Institute of Technology, estimates that Gregoire received 66.3 percent of the illegal felon votes.

And a study by Tony Gill, an associate political science professor at the University of Washington, estimates that Gregoire received 60.1 percent of felon votes in King County, Gregoire’s base and home to by far the largest number of illegal felon votes the GOP says were cast.

Compared with the national study, published in 2002 in the American Sociological Review, Gill writes that his study’s estimate “is too conservative, giving Ms. Gregoire the benefit of the doubt. In other words, the rate at which felons vote for a Democratic candidate is likely to be higher than the estimates provided by the precinct-level of analysis here.”

Katz did not return a phone call.

But Nick Handy, elections chief for the secretary of state’s office, the primary defendant in the case, said the national study shouldn’t be admissible.

“It strikes me that generalized testimony about how felons probably would have voted is getting pretty remote,” he said.

Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University who’s not involved in the case, said the national study is based too narrowly on race and is not applicable in Washington, where racial minorities make up a lower percentage of the felon population than in other states.

The study’s “hypothetical felon doesn’t really exist in most places in Washington. We just don’t fit that. We’re not in Georgia,” Donovan said.

 

Kenneth P. Vogel: 360-754-6093
ken.vogel@thenewstribune.com

[Stoat]

Another study with an obvious conclusion, but it's nice to see this point documented, particularly at this time as far as Washington State is concerned.

Full Steam Ahead Governor Rossi!

[andy58-in-nh]

In related news, a Government study has discovered that bears frequently defecate in the woods.

[RetiredArmy]

Jimmy Carter’s failed 1980 re-election would have gotten the lowest, at 66.5 percent.

Hell, Carter can't even get the felon vote!

[TeenagedConservative]

This is logically flawed, committing the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. Felons do not vote Democratic. Those who vote Democratic are felons.

[Sgt_Schultze]

at 85.4 percent. Jimmy Carter’s failed 1980 re-election would have gotten the lowest, at 66.5 percent.

New marketing initiative...

Two out of three felons prefer Democrats.
Are you with the crooks, or against them?

[Millee]

So 74% of felons are Democrats. I'm surprised it's that low.

[mikeus_maximus]

"...and some of them have lived in the White House." (I noticed that part was inadvertently omitted).

[Williams]

It's not nice to realize our citizenry has millions of felons and that they are a natural dem voting base. But it is good for a chuckle to realize the crooks would overwhelmingly vote for Clinton.

If you want a good reason not to let felons vote, think of the policies a politician would support to get this group's vote. Ugh.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

These people have a real grasp for the obvious.

[Constitution Day]

[bigfootbob]

This isn't what Pauly Berendt says. The dunce leader of the Washington State DemocRAT Party says felons voted for Rossi because pretend governor fraudoire was the attorney general who put bad guys in jail.

My question to you and perhaps you can look in your stoat-way-back machine you keep in your well equipped cave, has fraudoire ever tried a criminal during her 12 year tenure as AG? Busting non-tribal big tobacco in the chopps doesn't count.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Anyone who has one eye and an ounce of sense know that this is the primary reason behind the 'Rats wanting to automatically restore felons voting rights the same way they block efforts to require proof citizenship when registering to vote and proof of ID when at the polls.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

Felons Vote DemocRAT?

[N. Theknow]

In related news, a Government study has discovered that bears frequently defecate in the woods.

This is hugh!

Source?

[Spok]

"a hypothetical felon voting bloc would be so overwhelmingly Democratic it could swing national and statewide elections."

This isn't really news. Crooks need welfare and food stamps to sustain them between 'jobs'. They're also notoriously deficient when it comes to feeding the wife and kids.

[AngieGOP]

"In related news, a Government study has discovered that bears frequently defecate in the woods."

and discovered that water is wet.

[andy58-in-nh]

Don't know, but it's a very series study.

[Stoat]

This isn't what Pauly Berendt says. The dunce leader of the Washington State DemocRAT Party says felons voted for Rossi because pretend governor fraudoire was the attorney general who put bad guys in jail.

My question to you and perhaps you can look in your stoat-way-back machine you keep in your well equipped cave, has fraudoire ever tried a criminal during her 12 year tenure as AG? Busting non-tribal big tobacco in the chopps doesn't count.

You honor me with your kind words about the mighty StoatPuter as well as the humble yet cozy stoat cave, but in this case my furry little brain can only come up with 'achievements' such as what you have already mentioned.  Didn't she also have a hand in destroying the insurance industry here in Washington?  I found a bio online but it mentions nothing about that.  Here it is....

Christine Gregoire biography .ms

Christine Gregoire

Christine "Chris" Gregoire is the Attorney General of Washington State and the Democratic candidate in the 2004 Washington gubernatorial race.
 

The results of that election are still disputed. Against her opponent, Dino Rossi, she was defeated by 261 votes. However, an automatic machine recount diminished that lead to only 42 votes. On December 3rd, the Democratic party requested a hand recount, which will cost them an estimated $1 million. They also filed a motion in the state Supreme Court to reconsider rejected ballots that were not counted previously. The hand recount is expected to be completed on or before December 23rd.

Gregoire was raised in Auburn, and graduated from the University of Washington and Gonzaga University Law School. She served as the director of the state Department of Ecology from 1988 until 1992, when she was first elected attorney general, a post to which she has been twice re-elected. While Ecology Director she negotiated the triparty agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy to clean-up waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in 1989. As Attorney General she sued several times to try to get more adequate clean-up progress. Congress has not appropriated the level of funding to allow the pace of activity anticipated by the orginal agreement, now estimated to require a total of $50-100 billion to complete. Dissatisfaction with the slow pace of clean-up lead to a successful citizens initiative in 2004 to refuse new waste shipments until past clean-up promises were back on track.

Gregoire was also heavily involved in the lawsuit against the tobacco industry in the 1990s and won the state a $4.5 billion share of the settlement including a $500 million bonus for her lead role.

In the 2004 gubernatorial race, Gregoire was accused of racism when it was revealed that that she belonged to an all-white sorority while at the University of Washington. She countered the accusations by claiming to have spoken out after graduating for change in the policy to admit blacks into the sorority. Gregoire defeated Ron Sims (and four other minor candidates) in the primary election on 14 September 2004. Sims campaigned on the need for tax reform.

During the general election against former State Senator and real estate agent Dino Rossi, Gregoire proposed a major state research initiative in life sciences including stem cell research. She was criticized for being a part of the Olympia establishment but tried to counter the "time for a change" message by saying she would "blow past the bureaucracy" and bring change herself. This language surprised and disappointed many of her colleagues and supporters. She was also criticized for failing to give much mention or credit to the efforts and achievements of past Democratic Governors while being quite self-congratulatory about her own public service. A major focus of ads attacking Gregoire was her failing to meet a filing deadline as attorney general that ended up costing the state millions of dollars.

External links

• Campaign website
• Page at the Attorney General website

 

[Peach]

This is why Hillary wants to get a bill passed which gives felons the right to vote.

[N. Theknow]

Don't know, but it's a very series study.

As opposed to "vey series?"