Man learns his votes were illegal for yearsBy Susan Kelleher
Seattle Times staff reporter
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Douglas Kerley has voted in more than two dozen elections since 1995 and even served as a precinct worker in the 1980s.
But until November, the 55-year-old Lynnwood man was voting illegally.
"I shouldn't have been voting or buying hundreds of guns," he said, "but I was."
Kerley, a registered Republican who even ran a congressional campaign in 1984, said he had no idea he had cast illicit ballots in King and then Snohomish counties until about 18 months ago, when his application for a federal firearms-dealer license was denied because of a 1975 felony gun conviction.
Kerley had pleaded guilty to illegally transporting a gun into the U.S. and given two years probation. He was later imprisoned because officials incorrectly believed he had violated probation. He was freed nearly a year later when the matter was cleared up.
Kerley said the probation violation was removed from his record in 1981 and that he was "led to believe" the gun conviction also had been removed. That belief was reinforced, he said, when he was able to continue voting and buying guns.
When Kerley learned his record had not been expunged, he petitioned the court and had his voting rights restored in time for the November election, he said.
An Army veteran of Vietnam, Kerley said he was glad for the opportunity to vote but was troubled by a system that allowed people to cast ballots illegally.
"The dream of America is in this process," he said. "I don't want to see our government put into disrepute over this election. The process is so much more important than these petty points these people [the political parties] are making. These people are nothing. You and I are nothing. The process is everything."
Susan Kelleher: 206-464-2508 or skelleher@seattletimes.com.