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Jessica Bensley can legally carry a pistol in public — in part because she has never been convicted of a felony.

But last year, Bensley somehow ended up on Iowa's felon list. Because Iowa law doesn't allow felons to vote, the Polk County Auditor's Office, in turn, rejected the ballot she cast in November.

Iowa's mistake cost Bensley her constitutional right to vote. And she wasn't the only one.

A Des Moines Register investigation of six counties found that the ballots of more than two-dozen voters have been wrongly rejected since 2017 — including 20 in November's midterm elections — because their names mistakenly appeared on the felon list the state circulates to county officials.

Iowa maintains the list to enforce one of the nation's most restrictive bans on felon voting rights — permanently barring felons from voting unless they successfully petition the governor or president to restore their rights.

But the Register's investigation shows that the state's process for enforcing its felon ban is seriously flawed — and officials have known about systemic inaccuracies in its database of roughly 69,000 banned felons since at least 2012.

Emails show that state and county officials have blamed each other for failing to properly vet the felon list to make sure someone's voting rights are not wrongly denied, the Register found.

In June 2016, the Iowa secretary of state cross-checked felons in the state's "I-VOTERS" database, which contains the names of registered voters, and "correctly restored" 2,591 records — putting those Iowans back on the voting rolls, an email to county auditors shows.

Gov. Kim Reynolds has indicated she might be willing to support automatically restoring voting rights to felons who complete the terms of their sentence, a move that could re-enfranchise more than 50,000 Iowans and potentially reduce the errors that are denying some legal voters their right to have their ballot counted.

Bensley — who became aware her name was on the state's felon list when Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald notified her Nov. 20 that her Nov. 6 vote was rejected — spent hours trying to resolve the error.

She said the Iowa Secretary of State's Office, which provides the felon list to local auditors, never gave her a reason why her name was added to the list in August.

"Why was I not contacted telling me my voter’s rights were being taken away?" Bensley asked, noting that if she were a felon she could have faced criminal charges for voting.

Groups such as the League of Women Voters of Iowa, the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP, already critical of Iowa's felon voting restrictions, called the Register's findings further evidence of a broken and punitive system.

“This is a concern we’ve had for a while, that the list itself is not accurate,” said Daniel Zeno, policy director for the ACLU of Iowa.

Karen Person of the League of Women Voters of Iowa echoed those concerns.

"To find out there are lots of inaccuracies with who can and can’t vote because of the felon database is eye-opening," Person said. "I'm surprised and disappointed."

Government agencies blame each other

The Iowa court administrator compiles the felon list, which the Iowa secretary of state then distributes to all 99 counties.

The felon database is matched against the state's I-VOTERS registration database, which has been used for more than a decade. Those on the felon list are marked as ineligible in I-VOTERS.

But the Register found that the felons list also includes people who were charged but never convicted of a felony or who received a deferred judgment, which means their record was expunged after they completed probation.

In either situation, the person's voting rights should not be terminated under Iowa law.

In at least two-dozen cases, including Bensley's, the Register could find no justification for names being on the felon list.

Steve Davis, a spokesman for Iowa Court Administrator Todd Nuccio, noted that the Iowa Judicial Branch does not manage the I-VOTERS list. The electronic updates of felony convictions in Iowa courts are sent automatically by electronic transfer to the Iowa secretary of state, Davis said.

The Court Administrator's Office is aware of clerk data entry errors concerning felony convictions, Davis said.

Staff workers for former and current Iowa secretaries of state Matt Schultz and Paul Pate also have acknowledged errors in the list and urged all of Iowa's county auditors to verify each individual felony conviction before rejecting a ballot.

But Iowa county auditors have said it isn't feasible for their staffs to do that level of verification. It would require them to individually contact each clerk of court where a felony sentence was handed down, as well as two separate federal court districts.

They don't have the resources to conduct the searches, and the law doesn't require them to go to that level of verification, they argue.

Even if Iowa auditors were able to conduct the searches, they don't have access to some data that can definitively conclude whether an individual is eligible to vote, an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent told a county official in 2013, documents obtained by the Register show.

Pate on Friday issued a statement to the Register that said he has "dedicated significant time and resources" to fixing the problem.

"I share the frustrations people have with a system that is not perfect," Pate said.

He emphasized that his office doesn't create the data but instead serves as a conduit between the state's court system and auditors. He provided the Register with a seven-step flowchart for how Iowa's felon data and voting rights review is supposed to go.

Pate's staff contend in written responses that the onus is on county auditors to make sure a voter's ballot isn't wrongly rejected.

"In our communications with county auditors, we stressed that while we could not require the auditor to seek a final review by the clerk of court, final reviews added a vital additional check before canceling a voter’s registration,” Kevin Hall, a spokesman for Pate, said in a written response to questions. The Secretary of State's Office declined repeated requests for interviews on the topic.

That frustrates county officials such as Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, one of several auditors who told the Iowa Secretary of State's Office that the felon database is inaccurate. Requiring auditors to make those checks exposes them to legal liabilities for mistakes, Miller said.

"It's a list, and it is subject to human error," Miller told the Register. "This is a tough thing, but I have to take the felon list as gospel, and I’ve had to say (to the secretary of state), 'Look, this is your list. I'm not going to be your fall guy.'"

Nuccio, the Iowa court administrator, said he will issue a directive later this month that will require clerks of court to review and confirm each listed felony conviction before sending a felony report to the secretary of state. The directive — which he told the Register about Jan. 7 — is being made because of identified instances of clerk data entry errors.

It's unclear how the new directive will work.

"Because some counties have a large number of felony convictions — Polk County reported 167 in December — clerks from smaller counties may help with the quality-control verification," said Davis, the court administrator's spokesman.

► Database: Iowa's list of felons ineligible to vote

► More:How Iowa can fix its 'anti-democratic' felon voter ban? Critics say end it; governor willing to listen

Testing the cases in court

The ACLU of Iowa, an organization that has tracked complaints from Iowans about the felon database, believes that the state's actions violate federal law.

The organization is asking people to contact its offices to review possible legal remedies.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires states to keep voter registration lists accurate and current. It says voter removals must be completed at least 90 days before a federal election, noted Zeno of the ACLU of Iowa.

But Iowa has no statewide standards in place to accurately verify the identity of people convicted of a felony, leaving each district court clerk to decide that, Zeno said.

The ACLU identified a Clay County case where a man was wrongfully denied the right to vote in fall 2017 because of confusion in court filings between him and a defendant with a similar name.

The ACLU also identified a Polk County case where a father and son share the same name, and the father was wrongly added to the felon database.

"It is disappointing, to say the least, that people who should have had the legal right to vote were denied the right to vote not because they made a mistake but because the state of Iowa did," Zeno said.

The U.S. Department of Justice can pursue federal civil actions against states that violate election law, but its role in felon voter errors is unclear.

Kelly Laco, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, noted that felon voting bans "are a creature of state law, not federal law, so DOJ has no role in enforcing them."

The Register's follow-up questions about other aspects of the law that the ACLU believes could have been violated due to database errors have gone unanswered because of the federal government shutdown, which has furloughed Laco and many of her colleagues.

It's also unknown whether federal officials have fielded complaints about the Iowa felon list, but Hall, the secretary of state's spokesman, said the office has not been made aware of any complaints.

Rejected voter is 'pretty pissed off'

Joseph Rice of Des Moines and Tami Williams from Waukee contacted the Register on Nov. 6 to say they were wrongly placed on the felon database.

The two said their precinct officials informed them on Election Day that casting a vote would be illegal.

But Rice and Williams do not have felony convictions, which the Register confirmed through public records. They each told the Register they spent hours calling state and local election officials on that day, attempting to get the issue resolved.

The two were allowed to cast provisional ballots. Williams' vote was counted, but Rice’s was rejected, the Register determined.

Their names have since been removed from the state felon database, public records show.

"I'm pretty pissed off," Rice said a few days after he received a letter from the Polk County auditor informing him that his vote was rejected. "This just opened my eyes."

After speaking with Rice and Williams, the Register obtained the names of voters whose provisional ballots were rejected in November because they were listed on the felon database, picking as a sample Polk, Warren, Dallas, Story, Linn and Johnson counties.

The Register compared the rejected provisional ballots from the six counties against the secretary of state's database of more than 69,000 people listed as ineligible to vote because of felony convictions.

The Register found that at least 20 people whose provisional ballots were rejected because they were flagged as felons have since been removed from the felon list, including 18 in Polk County, and one each from Johnson and Warren counties.

The Register additionally identified five voters in Linn County who were on the felon list and were removed after a 2017 review that the secretary of state conducted at the county's request.

Colt Moss is an attorney for the Wandro & Associates law firm in Des Moines whose Nov. 6 ballot was rejected, though he has never been convicted of a felony.

Moss received a deferred judgment for drug-related charges in 2016, but it was expunged from his record after he completed probation.

He challenged his name's inclusion on the felon list and cast a provisional ballot Nov. 6.

Yet his ballot was rejected on Nov. 13 when the Polk County auditor reviewed the records and found his name on the felon list.His name has since been removed, the Register found.

In another situation, the Register identified an error involving two men living in the same home who share similar names. One of them — Michael Anthony Thomas, 52 — has a felony conviction and is ineligible to vote under Iowa law.

But the other — Michael Thomas Huss, 48 — does not have a felony conviction, yet he was placed on the felon list and was forced to cast a provisional ballot. His vote was rejected.

Contact us The Des Moines Register's review of voter issues is ongoing. Readers who have faced voting difficulties are encouraged to share their stories by contacting reporter Jason Clayworth at the above email or phone number.

Huss' name was removed from the felon list after the Nov. 6 election, but the correction was too late for his vote to be counted, records show.

"This is wrong," Michael Huss told the Register. "People are urged to go vote. So you do your civic duty and then find this out? It’s disturbing. It has stripped me of my rights as a citizen."

Fitzgerald, the Polk County auditor, said the secretary of state contacted his office regarding at least two other individuals after the Nov. 6 elections who had their provisional ballots rejected because their names mistakenly appeared on the felon list.

Fitzgerald believes that the felony database frequently contains names of people charged with a felony but never convicted, which is what happened with some of the wrongly rejected ballots reviewed by the Register.

Fitzgerald also believes that the felon database is incomplete and that Iowans with felony convictions in other states are voting. The Register's analysis found that the felon database did not list felony convictions from every state.

For example, it listed no felony convictions from Alabama or New York and only one from Florida.

It is unclear how felon convictions from other states are being added to the list or checked for accuracy.

Hall, from the Iowa Secretary of State's Office, directed that question to Nuccio, the court administrator. But Nuccio said felony convictions from other states are neither reported nor tracked by Iowa clerks of court.

"I don't think the state has any malice towards these folks; I just think they have a bad database," Fitzgerald said.

Longtime problems plague system

On Nov. 6, 2012, Cerro Gordo County officials rejected three people’s provisional ballots after confirming their names were on the state's felon list.

But Matt Anderson, an agent from the Division of Criminal Investigation, determined in December 2013 that their names were on the list incorrectly: One was charged but not convicted of a felony, and two had their voting rights restored under an executive order by former Gov. Tom Vilsack, Anderson found.

Anderson reported that it would take someone with his level of access and expertise to affirm someone's voter rights status, Cerro Gordo County Auditor Kenneth Kline wrote in a Jan. 28, 2014, memo to then-Secretary of State Matt Schultz.

"To have rejected a ballot based on an error or incorrect information is troubling, to say the least," Kline wrote in the 2014 memo.

Schultz acknowledged the system's deficiencies in an April 10, 2014, memo to state auditors that said at least nine other voters were wrongly listed as felons.

Schultz created a task force that included staff from the governor’s office to address the deficiencies. He also requested auditors work with local county attorneys, county sheriffs and county clerks of court to make sure felony conviction information is accurate before they reject provisional ballots.

Some auditors resisted Schultz’s 2014 request, saying they don’t have the resources or the access to some databases to accurately determine whether a person is a convicted felon.

In 2017, Mike Sievers of the Iowa Secretary of State Office's election division told auditors that the names in the database represent "potential" matches, saying "it is up to your office to make the final determination whether a match is referencing the same person."

Sievers instructed auditors that once they have verified a match, to record the person’s information on the "felon review form."

He added this sentence in bold:"Do NOT cancel any record due to a felony conviction until you have verified the conviction with the appropriate clerk of court."

But county auditors again in 2017 pushed back. In Linn County, for example, election officials noted the request would require them to contact 14 clerks of courts and officials in two separate federal court districts.

Sherrill Fillman, a Des Moines resident who had her November vote rejected because her name was erroneously on the felon database, said somebody — be it the state or county election officials — needs to be held accountable.

Fillman's name has since been removed from the database — but it was too late for her vote to be counted in the 2018 general election.

"I was listed as a felon and I'm not. Of course, this concerns me," Fillman said. "Everyone should be concerned about that list because they could find themselves on it, too."

The felon ban process and where it fails

Here is a brief outline of the Iowa law outlining the management of the felon voting ban, how it is supposed to work and where the Register found it had failed:

Being identified: Iowa district court clerks, the U.S. attorney or the Iowa secretary of state identifies people convicted of Iowa district court clerks, the U.S. attorney or the Iowa secretary of state identifies people convicted of a felony as defined by Iowa law State notified: The district clerks or attorneys notify the Iowa Secretary of State's Office, which maintains a list of convicted felons, including those whose voting rights have been restored. That office, in turn, determines whether the felon is registered to vote in any of Iowa’s 99 counties and is to notify the appropriate county election official about that person’s felon status. Record reconciliation and voter registry cancellation: Within 15 days of receipt of a list produced by the secretary of state, county election officials are to review matches and determine the accuracy of the state list, removing registered voters who are confirmed ineligible. Multiple auditors do not conduct those verifications , the Register found. Notice to voter: County election officials are to send the voter a notice and provide an opportunity to have the registration status reviewed. Multiple voters told the Register they had not been notified by the county auditor before the Nov. 6, 2018, election. Identifying errors: When a voter’s name on the state’s felon list is found to be inaccurate, county officials are to notify the secretary of state so the database is updated. The Iowa Secretary of State's Office in 2016 instructed county auditors to fill out a form for all voters who contest their listing as convicted felons and cast provisional ballots. It remains unclear whether any auditors used that form in 2018. The Register requested copies of the forms in November but the secretary of state has not provided any.

Source: Iowa law

About the author

JASON CLAYWORTH is an investigative reporter at the Des Moines Register whose focus includes government operations. He is an Iowa native and a graduate of Drake University's journalism school. Clayworth can be reached at 515-699-7058 or jclayworth@dmreg.com.