Thanks a lot, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Thanks to some bad lawyering by the State, and lack of analytical thinking by Judges, incarcerated criminals in Washington state can now vote because to prevent them is discriminatory against minorities, due to the Voting Rights Act.
Washington prisoners entitled to vote, federal court rules
In a move that could see Washington inmates voting from prison, a federal appeals court has thrown out the state's restrictions on felon voting due to civil rights concerns.

Under the Washington law at issue, citizens convicted of a felony lose the right to vote until they are released from custody and off of Department of Corrections supervision. The 2-1 ruling by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel puts those restrictions in doubt, the majority reviewing the voting rights lawsuit found that the state restrictions unfairly penalize minorities.

Attorneys for six Washington state prisoners, Circuit Court Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote, "have demonstrated that police practices, searches, arrests, detention practices, and plea bargaining practices lead to a greater burden on minorities that cannot be explained in race-neutral ways."

Joined by Judge Stephen Reinhardt in the majority opinion, Tashima found no "race neutral" explanation for the higher incarceration rates and reversed a U.S. District Court decision in favor of the felons.
From a blog:
You can see how dangerous it is to allow sociology professors to have their reports given the force of law by liberal Circuit judges — especially when they don’t appear to understand what they’re reading. For example, Judge Tashima writes in his opinion:

Dr. Crutchfield’s report states that criminal justice practices disproportionately affect minorities beyond what can be explained by non-racial means. For example . . . [a] study of the Washington State Patrol shows that Native Americans were more than twice as likely to be searched as Whites; African Americans were more than 70 percent more likely to be searched than Whites; and Latinos were more than 50 percent more likely to be searched.

Yet this very study, Prof. Crutchfield explains, rejects the idea that its data shows racial profiling. Contrary to Judge Tashima’s conclusion that “criminal justice practices disproportionately affect minorities beyond what can be explained by non-racial means,” the authors of the study cited by Tashima wrote:

There are simply too many remaining problems in the databases and possible effects from variables not considered in these analyses to support a statement that the statistical disparities witnessed in these data are the result of discrimination in the use of law enforcement authority.

Indeed, a later study by the same researchers found no evidence of racial profiling at all.
When I first read this in the paper I thought the Onion had somehow gotten column space.

At least it's likely to be overturned on appeal.

CR