What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

Opinion:
Paul B. OWENS, Appellant, v. William BARNES, Dauphin County Bureau of Elections, Appellee, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Intervenor.
No. 82-3207.
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
Argued March 8, 1983.
Decided June 30, 1983.
Certiorari Denied Nov. 7,1983.
See 104 S.Ct. 400.
Joseph A. Torregrossa (argued), Jessica S. Jones, Andrew T. Baxter, Philadelphia, Pa., for appellant.
Robert L. Knupp, Graf, Knupp & Andrews, Harrisburg, Pa., for appellee.
LeRoy S. Zimmerman, Atty. Gen., Francis R. Filipi, Deputy Atty. Gen., Chief, Crim. Justice Agencies, Gregory R. Neuhau-ser, Deputy Atty. Gen. (argued), Harrisburg, Pa., for intervenor.
Before SEITZ, Chief Judge, and HIG-GINBOTHAM and SLOVITER, Circuit Judges.
OPINION OF THE COURT
SLOVITER,
Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff, convicted of a third-degree felony under Pennsylvania law, is currently incarcerated in a Pennsylvania institution. He filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming that the Pennsylvania Election Code violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by denying incarcerated convicted felons an absentee ballot which, in effect, disenfranchises them.
Plaintiff concedes that Pennsylvania could constitutionally disenfranchise all convicted felons. That concession is compelled by the decision in Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24, 94 S.Ct. 2655, 41 L.Ed.2d 551 (1974). In Richardson, the Court considered not only' the language of the Equal Protection Clause contained in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment but also the language of the less familiar § 2 of that amendment which provides for reduced representation “when the right to vote at any election ... is denied ... or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime ” (emphasis supplied). After reviewing the history relating to the adoption of that section, the Court rested its conclusion that the state may disenfranchise felons on “the demonstrably sound proposition that § 1, in dealing with voting rights as it does, could not have been meant to bar outright a form of disenfranchisement which was expressly exempted from the less drastic sanction of reduced representation which § 2 imposed for other forms of disenfranchisement.” Id. at 55, 94 S.Ct. at 2671.
Plaintiff, however, argues that while Pennsylvania could choose to disenfranchise all convicted felons, it has not done so; uninearcerated convicted felons, such as those who have been sentenced to probation or released on parole, may vote. Plaintiff claims that the distinction made between incarcerated and unincarcerated felons violates equal protection. He argues that because the right to vote is fundamental, the classification must withstand strict scrutiny; in the alternative, he argues the classification is not even rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
It has not been seriously contended that Richardson precludes any equal protection analysis when the state legislates regarding the voting rights of felons. In the first place, in Richardson itself the Court acknowledged that unequal enforcement, if proven, could be unconstitutional and remanded so that the California courts could consider the claim “that there was such a total lack of uniformity in county election officials’ enforcement of the challenged state laws as to work a separate denial of equal protection. . . .” 418 U.S. at 56, 94 S.Ct. at 2671. Secondly, while there have been differing views as to whether there is any equal protection scrutiny of the state’s selection of disenfranchising offenses, compare the separate opinions in the in banc decision in Allen v. Ellisor, 664 F.2d 391 (4th Cir.), vacated to consider mootness in light of new statute, 454 U.S. 807,102 S.Ct. 80, 70 L.Ed.2d 76 (1981), it is generally accepted that the state may not otherwise classify on a wholly arbitrary basis. See Shepherd v. Trevino, 575 F.2d 1110,1114-15 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1129,99 S.Ct. 1047, 59 L.Ed.2d 90 (1979). Disenfranchisement distinctions among prisoners made on the basis of race are precluded by the Fifteenth Amendment, but the Equal Protection Clause in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment must be relied on to protect prisoners against invidious distinctions based on sex or other arbitrary classifications. Thus, the Commonwealth conceded at oral argument that the state could not disenfranchise similarly situated blue-eyed felons but not brown-eyed felons. It follows that the Equal Protection Clause remains applicable, even after Richardson, to some voting classifications affecting convicted felons.
In this case, plaintiff makes no claim of unequal enforcement nor of any discrimination among those felons who are incarcerated. Instead, plaintiff claims that because the right to vote is “fundamental” Pennsylvania cannot abridge or limit it on the basis of incarceration without showing that classification is necessary to promote a compelling state interest.
Plaintiff’s argument fails because the right of convicted felons to vote is not “fundamental”. That was precisely the argument rejected in Richardson. In that case, plaintiffs relied on decisions invalidating state-imposed restrictions on the franchise as violative of the Equal Protection Clause, such as Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972), Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 92 S.Ct. 849, 31 L.Ed.2d 92 (1972), Kramer v. Union Free School District, 395 U.S. 621, 89 S.Ct. 1886, 23 L.Ed.2d 583 (1969), and Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U.S. 701, 89 S.Ct. 1897, 23 L.Ed.2d 647 (1969), to support their argument that a state must show a “compelling state interest” to justify exclusion of ex-felons from the franchise. The Court rejected that argument, holding that state laws disenfranchising felons are, because of the express language of § 2 as well as its history, distinguished “from those other state limitations on the franchise which have been held invalid under the Equal Protection Clause by this Court.” 418 U.S. at 54, 94 S.Ct. at 2671. It follows that the standard of equal protection scrutiny to be applied when the state makes classifications relating to disenfranchisement of felons is the traditional rational basis standard. Accord Williams v. Taylor, 677 F.2d 510, 514 (5th Cir.1982); Shepherd v. Trevino, 575 F.2d at 1114-15. Contra Hobson v. Pow, 434 F.Supp. 362, 366 (N.D.Ala.1977).
In summary, the state can not only disenfranchise all convicted felons but it can also distinguish among them provided that such distinction is rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
It remains only to consider whether Pennsylvania’s voting scheme which permits unincarcerated felons to vote but denies that right to incarcerated felons satisfies this level of scrutiny. We are not bound by the state’s inexplicable failure to provide in its brief any rationale for such distinction, see Murillo v. Bambrick, 681 F.2d 898, 908 n. 20 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 103 S.Ct. 378, 74 L.Ed.2d 511 (1982), because we believe the basis is apparent on its face. The Court recently reiterated its earlier statement that “Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlining our penal system.” Hewitt v. Helms, — U.S. —, 103 S.Ct. 864, 869, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (quoting Price v. Johnston, 334 U.S. 266, 285, 68 S.Ct. 1049,1060, 92 L.Ed. 1356 (1948)). The state could rationally decide that one of the losses, in addition to the basic deprivation of liberty, to which a prisoner who is incarcerated should be subject is that of participation in the democratic process which governs those who are at liberty. At the same time, Pennsylvania could rationally determine that those convicted felons who had served'their debt to society and had been released from prison or whose crimes were not serious enough to warrant incarceration in the first instance stand on a different footing from those felons who required incarceration, and should therefore be entitled to participate in the voting process.
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the decision of the district court dismissing plaintiff’s complaint for failure to state a claim.
. The Pennsylvania Election Code does not explicitly disenfranchise convicted felons. The section dealing with absentee ballots provides:
[T]he words “qualified absentee elector” shall in nowise be construed to include persons confined in a penal institution or a mental institution....
25 Pa.Stat. §§ 2602(w)(12), 3146.1. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has construed the absentee ballot provision as legislative action defining qualified electors. Ray v. Commonwealth, 442 Pa. 606, 609, 276 A.2d 509, 510 (1971). As so interpreted, the Pennsylvania statute differs from the Tennessee statute construed in Tate v. Collins, 496 F.Supp. 205, 208 (W.D.Tenn.1980), on which plaintiff relies, which all parties conceded gave the prisoners at issue the right to vote.
. The Pennsylvania Attorney General has construed the decision in O’Brien v. Skinner, 414 U.S. 524, 94 S.Ct. 740, 38 L.Ed.2d 702 (1974), to require providing absentee ballots to incarcerated misdemeanants and pretrial detainees. See 1974 Op.Att’y.Gen. No. 47. This is not at issue here and we express no view on this interpretation of O’Brien.
. The full text of § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment is as follows:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of. representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
. The Commonwealth gives no support for its argument that convicted felons should be regarded as “confined in a penal institution” as long as they are under “lawful, sentence” irrespective of whether they are incarcerated. Brief for Intervenor at 14. The statutory words “confined in a penal institution” could not be clearer and we see no reason to twist them out of their natural meaning by the Commonwealth’s strained interpretation. Further, the published Attorney General’s Opinion states that “the Election Code permits a convicted felon who has served his sentence or who is free on probation to appear personally and register and vote.” 1974 Op.Att’y.Gen. No. 47, at 187-88.
. We need not decide the standard to be applied were the distinction made on a basis, such as sex or national origin, which ordinarily evokes a heightened level of scrutiny.

Question: What is the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "natural persons"? Answer with a number.

Choices:

Answer: 1