Voting rights ‘blessing’ for ex-felons

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Friday, June 18, 2004 | 9:28 a.m.

The number of former felons using a 2003 law to restore their right to vote has skyrocketed in recent months, private and public officials working to help promote the law said.

The year-old law has been "a blessing," Rosie Horner said. Now 44, she was charged with grand larceny for shoplifting in 1990 and served 14 months behind bars.

"I used to vote all the time -- I enjoyed giving my opinion," she said. "When I got out (of prison), they took away that right."

The West Las Vegas resident, who used to work in construction and now gets Social Security disability benefits because of a knee injury, said she deserves to vote again.

"I'm no longer the person I was 14 years ago," she said.

She learned that people like her could regain the right to vote when she heard a radio show in March. It featured Paul Brown, Southern Nevada director for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a nonprofit organization helping former felons with the paperwork that the law requires.

Brown said there are many more Rosie Horners out there who deserve to be able to vote again.

"Entire communities have been disenfranchised by the disproportionate incarceration rate of poor people and minorities and this law helps to put power back in the hands of those people," Brown said.

The trend is particularly important in the black community, because nearly five times as many blacks are put behind bars in Nevada than whites or Hispanics, according to the Western Prison Project, a nonprofit organization.

Brown's organization, together with two Clark County Public Defenders, is listed on a pamphlet that the county's election department issued in April explaining the law.

With that combined effort, the numbers of former felons who have registered to vote or begun the process has ranged from 12 to 26 a month since March -- compared with the less than five a month the election department was seeing up to February.

The Sun revealed on Feb. 4 that the law, though effective July 2003, had made virtually no impact on the number of former felons actually registering to vote.

The law -- which started as Assembly Bill 55 -- aims to restore the right to vote to all those who were honorably discharged from probation or parole, pardoned by the governor, or released from prison before July 1, 2003. Some restrictions are placed on those who were released after July 1. The person seeking to register has to show documents from the appropriate state agency proving their discharge, pardon or release.

But the different agencies involved were unclear on the law, and information about it was not getting to the street.

After the Sun published its story, a meeting was held between PLAN, the election department, the public defenders, the parole and probation department and the secretary of state. Details were ironed out to more effectively implement the law -- including certifying the public defenders as field registrars for the election department and enlisting PLAN in helping people with the paperwork.

Brown said 34 states automatically restore the right to vote to former felons without the added step of showing documents, so his organization will be suggesting eliminating this step at the 2005 legislative session.

The issue is currently causing controversy in Florida, which like Nevada is one of the states that does not automatically restore voting rights. Officials there are seeking to avoid mistakes made in 2000, when the state barred a number of voters who were mistakenly considered felons from casting a ballot.

Meanwhile, David Gibson, chief deputy public defender, has been registering people in North Las Vegas for the past two months from his weekly outreach sessions at Buena Vista Springs Community Center at 2417 Morton Ave. -- 12 in April, 20 in May.

All the people he has registered have been black, he said.

The law is important, he said, because it "increases the chance of rehabilitation" by increasing participation in the community.

Gibson said he is still running across some glitches in the process, including having people he has registered later show up as felons again in a computer database that the election department checks.

Launa Hall, field organizer for PLAN, said in May she helped 26 people begin the process, which usually takes about 30 days.