New data base to close some felon voting holes

But not all, as reported by the P-I here.

Right now, the voter rolls in Washington State are maintained by each individual county, and when a person is convicted of a felony, the court is supposed to notify the county of residence of the felon, that s/he has been convicted of a felony.

However, there is an immediate problem here. If a person, who has residency in one county, is convicted of a felony in another county, they often are not reported by the convicting county to the county where the felon resides. This new, state-wide voter registration data base (scheduled to go on line some time this year) is supposed to eliminate that problem, and I really hope it does do that.

The other problem that already exists, and will not be addressed by the new data base, is when someone is convicted of a felony in Federal Court, as the Federal Courts are apparently under no obligation to notify the state or county where the felon has residency.

Here's a simple solution to that, although it will involve politicians (which almost always seems to 'complicate' things) - enact a Federal law that, whenever anyone is convicted of a felony, whether that conviction is in State or Federal Court, the State/County of residency is automatically notified of that conviction. I know that Washington State isn't the only state to revoke a felons right to vote upon conviction of a felony, so it logically stands to reason that other states' have the same notification problem. This solution should eliminate that problem for all states.

Really all that needs to be done, on the Federal level, is add a new field in the NCIS data base of convicted felons, to have the "notify State/County" information. Yes, it would entail a certain cost to have that information added to that data base, and yes, it would entail a certain cost to have the states and counties notified, but I think the cost for that would actually be minimal in the long run. Corporations are constantly updating their data bases to include new information related to their business, so why couldn't the government do the same? (I know, I know - logic and simplicity and government usually don't mix, but still, it could be done.)