Law to boost felons’ voting not working

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2004 | 9:20 a.m.

Seven months after becoming law, a 2003 bill meant to make it easier for certain former felons to get their right to vote restored is not achieving its goals, officials said.

The bill -- AB55 -- is of particular importance to the black community, where a high number of males older than 18 are former felons, said Paul Brown, regional director for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a nonprofit group that testified on behalf of the bill in the 2003 Legislature.

Though no statewide figures exist, about 1 in 8 black adults nationwide are not able to vote because of prior felony convictions, according to the Western Prison Project, a nonprofit group.

But despite the bill's provisions -- which eliminated the time-consuming process of petitioning the state Department of Parole and Probation and automatically restored certain civil rights to nonviolent offenders -- the number of former felons registering to vote has not risen since the bill became law last July, according to the Clark County Election Department.

"This is disappointing," Brown said. "The intent of the law is to get people who have paid their debt to society back into the system."

That's not happening, the election department numbers show. Both before and after the bill became law, the election department registered about five or fewer former felons a month, said Cathy Smith, who oversees the issue for the department.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, pushed to have the civil rights provisions of AB55 included, since the bill also deals with other issues related to felons. She said she was also disappointed by the election department's numbers and that it showed "we must still have some implementation problems or a breakdown in communications."

Other civil rights addressed by the bill include the right to serve as a juror in a civil case, the right to hold office, which is restored four years after completing probation, and the right to serve as a juror in a criminal case, which is restored six years after completing probation.

One obstacle is a key piece of paperwork: the discharge paper that verifies that a felon has successfully completed probation.

Smith said anywhere from 60 to 101 former felons per month have attempted to register since July. But when she sends a letter informing them what they need to get their right to vote restored, very few respond, or they respond with the wrong paperwork.

Amy Wright, director of the state Parole and Probation Department, said that former felons who have lost their discharge papers need to petition the court where they were originally convicted to get another copy, not ask her department for one.

"I know it's confusing," Wright said.

That discourages people, Chief Deputy Public Defender David Gibson said.

"People are probably getting frustrated and giving up halfway through the process," said Gibson, who runs across former felons in weekly outreach sessions at the Buena Vista Springs Community Center, 2417 Morton Ave.

Wright said she will be revising the discharge papers in the next month or so to offer a "more thorough explanation of the law."

"I'll acknowledge that we haven't done all that we could to get this out," she said. The director said that 1,416 nonviolent offenders have been given honorable discharge from probation in Clark County since the law was passed.

Willia Chaney, a volunteer with Let's Go Vote, a nonprofit voter registration project, said the law is confusing to people like her and former felons alike.

"We're out here in the community and most ex-felons don't know how to use the process," she said.

She said she has done voter registration at some sites -- such as Lake Mead and Martin Luther King boulevards -- where three out of four people interested in registering to vote are former felons.

Gibson, the public defender, ran across someone Tuesday who wants to get his rights back.

Charles Wynn, 42, said he was convicted of forgery about six years ago, placed on probation for three years and discharged after a year.

He said he has saved his discharge papers in storage and hopes the process of restoring his rights goes smoothly so he can vote in this year's presidential elections.

Wynn, who is black, said "politicians get put in office by the people. The less people vote, the more stuff is getting shoved down our throats.

"Less African-Americans voting means ... less representation," he said.

As for going seven years without voting, he said, "It feels like I don't have a voice.

"I'm looking forward to feeling like a citizen again."