Grant Rodgers

grodgers@dmreg.com

Thousands of Iowa felons will have an easier time applying to win back their voting rights after changes to the application form were announced Wednesday.

But civil liberties advocates portrayed the change as a small improvement to a policy that will continue to keep ex-offenders out of Iowa voting booths unless it's completely overhauled.

Gov. Terry Branstad announced the new streamlined application form along with a review of the applications required for other executive clemency actions, including firearm rights restoration, pardons and commutations of life-in-prison sentences. The review is meant to "streamline the process and find government efficiencies," according to a news release.

“This newly re-designed application form strikes a balance between ensuring that offenders have demonstrated their ability to regain their voting rights, while also creating a more user-friendly process for offenders who would like their voting rights restored,” Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the release. “This application form is just another example of our administration’s commitment to promote fairness for the victims of crime while being mindful that rehabilitated offenders should have an opportunity to receive clemency.”

But Betty Andrews, president of the Iowa-Nebraska NAACP, doubted the change would significantly boost the already-low number of eligible felons who seek to have their rights restored through the current procedures set up by Branstad.

“It may bring a few more people to the table, but the reality is we need broad-based, substantive change,” she said. “We need something that’s going to really affect a number of people.”

Voting rights in the courts

The announcement comes less than one month after Iowa's policy on felons voting faced scrutiny from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups in a major voting rights case argued before the Iowa Supreme Court. Advocacy groups argued that restoring voting rights helps ex-offenders adjust to life outside prison, and an NAACP attorney argued the current state policy disproportionately affects black Iowans.

The case came out of a mother's lawsuit challenging her disenfranchisement for a nonviolent drug crime. Under the Iowa Constitution, offenders convicted of "infamous crimes" are stripped of their voting rights. The case requires the justices to determine whether all felonies should be considered "infamous."

Among other concerns with the process were arguments that the former 29-question application designed by the Branstad administration asked invasive questions and was a burden to fill out. The new application for restoring a felon's voting rights pares down the number of questions to just 13.

The new application cuts out a previous requirement that ex-offenders provide information on court-ordered alimony or child support payments, as well as their history of filing state and federal tax returns. It also ditches a requirement that a felon provide the "name and current address" of several people involved in their cases, including the prosecutor, defense attorney and judges.

Though typically publicly available, those details can be tough for a felon to find, especially for somebody who served a lengthy prison sentence, said Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald, a Democrat who favors restoring voting rights to most felons.

"You’re dealing with people who have been out of society for a while," he said. "Things can change. Say you got out after 20 years, you probably don’t even remember the guy’s name."

Branstad and Secretary of State Paul Pate, both Republicans, say the process is not as difficult as advocates claim. So far in 2016, it's taken an average of 25 days for the governor's office to process a fully completed restoration, according to information provided Wednesday after an inquiry from The Des Moines Register.

Branstad's communications director Ben Hammes said a review of the application has been ongoing for "the last few weeks" but was not connected to the state supreme court arguments. The goal was to narrow the form to just the "core questions" that need to be answered before rights could be restored.

“This straightforward application form makes it easier for both the offender and the state of Iowa to put those eligible for a restoration of voting rights on the path back to the voting booth without compromising the integrity of the criminal justice system,” Branstad said in a news release.

A years-long debate in Iowa

The ongoing debate over voting rights started when Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack signed an executive order in 2005 creating an automatic process to restore voting rights to felons who'd completed their sentences. Branstad almost immediately rescinded the order upon taking office in 2011, replacing the process with his own case-by-case system.

Civil liberties advocates have argued that Iowa's policy is among the harshest in the nation. Iowa, Florida and Kentucky are the only three states that permanently bar convicted felons from voting unless they complete the process for restoration.

ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Jeremy Rosen said the changes to the application form were welcome, but they make the restoration process "only slightly less onerous." The process still includes many steps that the group considers burdensome, he said. The ACLU of Iowa disagrees with requirements that an ex-offender must pay to get a criminal history record from the state.

"We fear that most citizens will still feel they need the assistance of an attorney to complete this application, and most will simply be deterred," Rosen said in a statement. "Make no mistake: this process is not simple."

Andrews said the best change would be a return to an automated process for rights restoration like the one created by the Vilsack administration. Currently, few ex-offenders choose to file an application with the governor's office. According to data presented in a legal brief by the Iowa League of Women Voters, only 110 felons applied between 2011 and 2014, though approximately 14,500 finished sentences and became eligible.

As many as 57,000 Iowans are identified in a state database of disenfranchised felons.