skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

JD, Usha Vance visit Greenland as Trump administration eyes territory; Maine nurses, medical workers call for improved staffing ratios; Court orders WA to rewrite CAFO dairy operation permit regulations; MS aims to expand Fresh Start Act to cut recidivism.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The Dept. of Health and Human Services prepares to cut 10,000 more jobs. Election officials are unsure if a Trump executive order will be enacted, and Republicans in Congress say they aim to cut NPR and PBS funding.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Rural folks face significant clean air and water risks due to EPA cutbacks, a group of policymakers is working to expand rural health care via mobile clinics, and a new study maps Montana's news landscape.

WA legislators weigh voting rights for incarcerated people

play audio
Play

Thursday, February 27, 2025   

More than 14,000 incarcerated people in Washington are not able to vote and two bills in Olympia aim to change it.

One bill would make voting more accessible for people in jail by improving access to the voter's pamphlet and voter registration forms. Another would allow people in prison in Washington to vote for the first time in the state's history.

Charles Longshore is incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Men in Shelton. He does advocacy work from prison and said without the right to vote, it is not easy to get a legislator's attention.

"I've helped draft a bill that's before the legislature this session and leading on several other bills," Longshore pointed out. "But I find that it's difficult because you have no reason to be accountable to me."

Longshore is a Skokomish tribal member and said giving the vote to incarcerated people would help right historical wrongs against Indigenous people, who were not given the full right to vote until 1965. Data show Native Americans are vastly overrepresented in the criminal legal system.

Opponents of allowing people to vote from prison said voting is a privilege and breaking laws should mean you lose your voice.

Anthony Blankenship, senior community organizer for the advocacy group Civil Survival, said everyone is a constituent, whether they get to choose who represents them or not. He argued allowing incarcerated people to vote will help with their rehabilitation.

"We have to be able to see and understand what they need to be successful and what they need to not recidivate or go back to prison or harm anyone ever again," Blankenship emphasized.

Blankenship added it is unlikely the bills will pass this session but it is important to keep raising the issue.

"We have to keep on pushing," Blankenship urged. "We have to keep on saying that these are opportunities for people to be part of our community and not be on the outside looking in."

Disclosure: The Washington Voting Justice Coalition contributes to our fund for reporting on Civic Engagement, Civil Rights, and Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
Mississippi's three-year recidivism rate reached 40% in 2023, according to state task force data - among the highest in the United States. (Pixabay)

Social Issues

play sound

For thousands of Mississippians leaving prison each year, a single question looms large: Who will hire me? State lawmakers could remove some of the …


Health and Wellness

play sound

Rural communities in Missouri are bracing for a tough reality as they plan ahead for the possibility of federal cuts to programs such as Medicaid…

Social Issues

play sound

This has been "National March Into Literacy Month" but it may become tougher over the summer to "march" into a public library and ask for help finding…


Students harvest food grown in the school greenhouse and use it for meals in their culinary program's in-house restaurant and cafeteria, creating a sustainable cycle. (Courtesy of Exact Solar)

Environment

play sound

Groups in Pennsylvania are asking Congress to preserve federal clean-energy tax incentives. Concerned about the possible repeal of 30% energy tax …

play sound

By Sara Hashemi for Sentient.Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration John…

The USDA reported since April 2024, there have been avian influenza virus detections in 336 commercial flocks and 207 backyard flocks, for a total of more than 90.9 million birds affected.(Adobe Stock)

Environment

play sound

West Virginians are more concerned about bird flu's effect on grocery costs rather than health implications, and Republican voters are more likely to …

Social Issues

play sound

The federal HALT Fentanyl Act advancing through Congress would increase prison time for fentanyl traffickers. Kentuckians convicted on distribution …

Social Issues

play sound

Labor groups representing thousands of Minnesota state workers find themselves at serious odds with Gov. Tim Walz over his move this week to reduce …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021