Bills would extend felons’ voting rights

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, April 7, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Several legislators are sponsoring bills that would make it easier for felons to regain their eligibility to vote after they serve their sentences.

The Legislature loosened rules in the 2003 session for ex-felons to petition to be able to vote and to serve on juries.

Since then, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada has helped about 400 people reclaim their voting and jury service eligibility, said Paul Brown, the group's Southern Nevada director. But the process is too time-consuming and cumbersome, Brown said.

Assembly Bill 452 aims to simplify the process. Its sponsor, Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, said the bill would extend voting rights to people who were dishonorably discharged from parole. He said in many cases that dishonorable discharge was a result of the offender's inability to pay restitution.

The bill also makes regaining voting eligibility easier for people who have committed some crimes involving use of force or violence.

And it allows former prisoners to petition any competent court for restoration of rights, instead of just the court where the person was convicted of a felony.

Felons -- and their attorneys -- were often uncertain which court to petition under the old law, Brown said.

Munford said that under the current requirements, the process can take years.

"Many ex-felons I've talked to told me, 'I just got too tired,"" he said. "They became so disgusted and lost hope and decided not to go through the process."

Munford said he was inspired to sponsor the bill after he campaigned in his district and met many neighbors, friends and former students who said they couldn't vote.

Munford, a retired high school government teacher, and others argued that voting is an important step for former prisoners to reassimilate into society.

"Ex-felons have paid for their crime," he said. "We have trusted them to return to society and contribute to their neighborhoods and communities."

And, he said, minorities are imprisoned more often than whites.

"We are keeping more communities of color from voting rights as well," he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada also supports the bill and hopes it signals a move toward better integrating former prisoners into society, said executive director Gary Peck.

"There's no more fundamental or important right than voting," Peck said.

Munford presented his bill Wednesday to the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which will look at it later.

Some committee members said they were concerned that felons who were dishonorably discharged chose not to pay restitution and might not deserve their rights back.

Amy Wright, chief of the division of parole and probation, said most people are dishonorably discharged "because they failed to make restitution when they had the means to do so."

Parole supervisors use pay stubs to decide if former prisoners can afford to pay the restitution, she said.

But many former prisoners often can't pay the money up front, and could continue to chip away at their restoration costs while they have voting rights, Brown said.

Munford's bill contains another provision that concerned some committee members: Felons whose records have been sealed -- probably because they committed a crime as a juvenile -- would not have to list their criminal history on employment applications.

Assemblyman Marcus Conklin, D-Las Vegas, said he had concerns about that provision because some businesses need to know if their employees have a conviction relating to their job.

A person applying to be a truck driver, for example, should have to list previous convictions for drunken driving, he said.

Munford said his bill would require businesses to provide another area on an application for people to indicate whether they were convicted of a felony that specifically relates to the job they are seeking.

Sen. Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, said the legislation passed last session was a step in the right direction, but it's still too difficult for ex-felons to restore their rights.

"It's not enough," he said. "It's too cumbersome. It's onerous."

He is sponsoring Senate Bill 360, which states that ex-felons who regain their voting rights shouldn't have to present documentation when they vote.

Even people who were honorably discharged 10 or 20 years ago have to show documentation, and many don't have it, Horsford said.

Horsford's bill also shorten the time it takes for ex-felons to seal their records, in an effort to help ex-felons move on and get better jobs in the community, he said.

The bill would reduce the time it takes to seal records under category C or D felonies to 10 years instead of the current 12 years.

Ex-felons who committed Class E felonies would see their time period reduced from 10 years to 7 years.

The time period prior to being able to seal records after a conviction for a misdemeanor would be reduced from 3 years to 1 year, except for DUI and battery that stems from domestic violence.