There were two significant advances in the drive to restore voting rights to felons this week, one in Florida and one in Washington state.

Advancement One:

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived an inmate voting rights case . The challenge was based on grounds that the state's law depriving felons of the right to vote discriminated against minorities. The appeals court sent the case back to the lower court to conduct a "searching" investigation.

The appeals court expressed no opinion on the merits of the inmates' claim, but said the lower court failed to consider evidence of bias in the state's criminal justice system. The appeals court noted, for example, that blacks make up about 3 percent of the state population but account for 37 percent of the ``persistent offender'' sentences handed down.

The law professor representing the inmates said the ruling has national implications. The Sentencing Project describes the ruling this way:

On July 25th, 2003, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the district court in the Washington state felony disenfranchisement litigation of Farrakhan v. Locke. While the district court had recognized that the state's disenfranchisement scheme resulted in a disproportionate impact on African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, the court had ruled that this impact was not related to the disenfranchisement provision itself. In overturning the ruling, the 9th Circuit stated that under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act a "totality of the circumstances" inquiry "requires courts to consider how a challenged voting practice interacts with external factors such as 'social and historical conditions' to result in denial of the right to vote on account of race or color." The court further held that "evidence of discrimination within the criminal justice system can be relevant to a Section 2 analysis."

Advancement Two

In Florida, the settlement of a lawsuit means 20, 000 to 30,000 ex-felons will regain the right to vote. There are an estimated 400,000 ex-felons in the state.

The New York Times opines there is Chaos in California due to the upcoming recall vote on Governor Gray Davis. The Times thinks California's recall methods need to be redesigned. First, it only takes 12% of the voters to cause a recall. In most other states, it's 25%. Next, it's possible for someone without much experience or even broad support to win the prize after a recall.

Salon asks whether it will be Arianna vs. the Terminator.

Kevin Thurman of Raise Your Hands has examined the situation in detail, here and here.

Digby has a very thoughtful piece opposing the recall here.

In a study released today, computer-science researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Rice University are warning of security risks with the new electronic voting machines made by Diebold.

In a study released Friday, computer security experts warn that an electronic voting system used in some states, including Georgia, as an alternative to the troublesome punch-card ballots is highly vulnerable to fraud.

The study found "significant security flaws" with the system designed by Diebold Election Systems. The system was vulnerable to unscrupulous voters as well as "insiders such as poll workers, software developers and even janitors," who could cast multiple votes without a trace, according to the study.

The system allows ballots to be cast on a 15-inch touchscreen. The study was the first review of the software by independent researchers. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, a lead researcher on the study, said there is no quick fix for the software.

Here is our background post to this.

Michael Tomasky, soon to be the Editor-in-Chief of American Prospect, has some advice for the Democratic candidates on how to deal with their Ralph Nader problem:

So here's a thought for an enterprising Democratic candidate: Attack Nader right now, and with lupine ferocity. Say he's a madman for thinking of running again. Blast him especially hard on foreign policy, saying that if it were up to the Greens, America would give no aid to Israel and it would cease to exist, and if it were up to the Greens, America would not have even defended itself against a barbarous attack by going into Afghanistan. Have at him, and hard, from the right. Then nail him from the left on certain social issues, on abortion rights and other things that he's often pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant. Cause an uproar. Be dramatic. Don't balance it with praise about what he's done for consumers. To the contrary, talk about how much he's damaging consumers today by not caring who's in charge of the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Communications Commission.

We think it's sound advice. So does Eric Alterman.

Update: Hessiod at Counterspin has more news, of which he says:

Yet more evidence that many 2000 Nader Voters [especially in a State like Michigan] were more ANTI-GORE than Pro-Nader. Anyone who thinks that sucking up to the Green party will convince them to do the right thing and work with the Democrats to topple Bush next fall...are smoking the same thing many of the Green Party voters are smoking.

Update: Here's the other side, from Kerim at Keywords.

For the record, we don't hate the Greens. But we do think Nader cost Gore the election. We also agree with the commenter who said Clinton and Gore were both bad on criminal justice issues. We've written articles about it. They were awful. But there's no comparison between them and Bush and Ashcroft. We have long been saying we don't want to end up with a Democratic candidate who is nothing more than Bush Lite after you've scratched the surface--we want the party to take a left turn. But we'll support whichever Dem gets the nomination because it will be a vast improvement over Bush, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.

MSNBC just announced that Jack Kemp is throwing his hat in the ring to run for Governor of California....no details yet.

Democratic contender Howard Dean leads the pack in California, according to a new poll taken there. He also is ahead of President Bush.

Kudos to the Dixie Chicks who have joined the Rock the Vote campaign to get the youth vote out.

The group's involvement with Rock the Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1990, is an indirect result of the Bush uproar. "We never had intentions to become a political band but like it or not we have been placed on a unique political platform in the past months," Maines said Monday. "We feel it would be irresponsible not to make something positive come out of that."

Besides lending their images and music to a Rock the Vote Web site that will guide people through the voter registration process, bandmates Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison said they would urge people at their concerts to become politically active.

A new USA Today/ CNN / Gallup poll shows that President Bush's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level since March.

The president's approval rating fell to 59%, its lowest level since March, in the poll of 1,003 adults over the weekend.

Bush's lowest marks came on his handling of the economy: 45% approved, 51% disapproved. That weakness extended to the Republican Party, which controls Congress. Democrats had a 17-point advantage, 53%-36%, when poll respondents were asked which party would do a better job handling the economy. In January, the GOP had a 43%-42% edge.

We can win. We just need a candidate and a platform.

Did you know that it's the Republicans who are leading the charge for the reform of drug laws?

The reason Republicans are taking the lead on drug policy reform is not just because it saves money, although it does. It is because putting appropriate, carefully selected offenders into treatment instead of incarceration gets both tough and smart on crime. If they can do it in Texas, we can do it in Maryland.

And we should be able to do it in the rest of the country. Where are the Democrats, other than Sharpton and Kucinich on this?

We wrote last week about a Vermont newspaper editorial critical of Howard Dean's view of indigent defense and criminal defendants while he was Governor of Vermont. We were hoping he would address this on his blog and debunk the charge. We haven't seen any response. But we did receive this from a lawyer whose integrity we trust and who was a former public defender in Vermont.

I was a public defender in Vermont during part of Dean's tenure. He was openly hostile to the defense function. He once addressed a meeting of defense attorneys by stating that "my job is to make your job as difficult as possible." He is a man of his word, at least on this campaign promise. He did not want to fund public defense.

To his credit he appointed Robert Appel to the post of Defender General (Public Defender in charge of the state system.) Then he refused to reappoint Appel apparently because Robert was most effective on the shoestring budget he was given.

Dean, despite his present self proclaimed environmental advocate status, was fairly hostile to environmental concerns while Governor. Dean repeatedly appointed pro business, non environmentally sensitive people to the Environmental Board. In Dean's logic, any business that would provide a half dozen minimal wage jobs could do what they wanted to the environment. When I returned to New Jersey, I could observe that the only real difference between N.J. and VT environmentally (at least under Dean) was that VT had 7.5 million less residents.

Of course in a battle between Dean and Bush ....

When I asked this attorney if I could print his comments, he agreed, but asked to be referred to simply as a "former Vermont public defender." We are honoring his request. In his reply, he added,

Inasmuch as I fear Bush more than I distrust Dean, I would still probably vote for Dean if it came to a showdown. By the way, [one of my clients was accused] of arson murder. When my statewide boss said he didn't have the money for experts, I moved to dismiss arguing that it matters little which arm of the state was denying my client due process and effective assistance. The trial court ordered the experts, my boss appealed. The VT supremes ordered my boss to give me what I needed and to essentially rob peter to pay paul with his budget. My client was acquitted after an hour and one half of deliberation.

We are not trying to diss Dr. Dean. If he gets the nomination, he'll be our new best friend and we'll actively seek his election. But indigent defense is an issue near and dear to us, and we'd like to know if he thinks the criticism leveled at him is unfair, or if he thinks it was fair at the time but he's had a change of heart, or if it was fair then and remains fair today.

The Bush Wars has taken Howard Dean's 16 Questions for Bush and researched and presents the sources and their accompanying links.

Nice job.

Zogby News reports on the increasing decline of Bush's approval rating:

Bush Job Performance Slips to 53% Positive, 46% Negative; More Voters (47%) Say It's Time for Someone New Than Say He Deserves Re-election

47% say its time for someone new. That's an increase from 38% a month ago. 42% now have an unfavorable opinion of Bush as a person. [thanks to Media Horse for the link]

We think this signals the Dems can win in 2004. But they need a left-of-center candidate, not a centrist, and they need a platform, not platitudes. Voters will need a clear choice, and that will only come from sharply delineated positions on issues. Iraq and security may be key, but they are not the only issues. As the economy and state budgets continue to crumble and the cutting of essential services begins to affect daily lives, we think more people will be eager for change. It's up to the Democrats to provide them with a clear alternative. We haven't seen one yet among the top contenders, but it's still early and we're still hoping one emerges.