Errors remain in felon voter list as metro Des Moines residents cast votes on sales tax

Last week, Jessica Bensley voted early in a Des Moines special election, just months after Iowa erroneously labeled her a felon and rejected her November vote.

Her wrongful listing as a felon is not unique. Iowa election officials have known since at least 2012 that a database of more than 69,000 felons has errors. 

Iowa Court Administrator Todd Nuccio this month issued a directive that mandates court administrators conduct monthly manual checks. But Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald said the database remains flawed.

That means lawful voters in Des Moines and five other Polk County cities could still run into problems if their names are incorrectly on the felon voting list as they attempt to cast ballots in the special election, in which voters will decide whether to impose a 1-cent local option sales tax. Early voting began Feb. 4, and the election is March 5.

Bensley — still outraged by her November ballot rejection — said she is considering filing a civil lawsuit against the state.

“My biggest thing is I really just want something done about it,” Bensley said. “But if nothing truly changes, what is going to get their attention? Would a lawsuit get their attention? I’m debating it.”

Bensley was charged with being an accessory to a burglary several years ago but was never convicted of a felony, court records show. She said she had voted in previous elections before learning on Nov. 20 that her general election vote was rejected. She also 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 incorrectly placed on the list.

While the full scope of errors is unknown, in 2016 the secretary of state cross-checked records and “correctly restored” 2,591 people onto the state’s voting rolls, public records show.  

That cross-check didn’t resolve the problems. A Des Moines Register investigation of six counties found that the ballots of more than two dozen voters were wrongly rejected since 2017 — including 20 in November's midterm elections.

Yet the database is still being used.

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

Florida voters agreed Nov. 6 to amend their state’s constitution to restore voting rights for most felons when they complete their sentences, leaving Iowa and Kentucky as the only remaining states that permanently ban felons from voting unless the governor or president individually restores them.

► Read more: A Des Moines Register investigation found systemic and longtime inaccuracies in Iowa’s database of more than 69,000 felons

The Iowa Legislature is considering action that would amend the state's constitution to restore felons' voter rights after they have completed their sentences, an initiative supported by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

But amending the state’s constitution is a process that could take more than four years.

Members of organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice — a voter rights advocacy group — believe Reynolds should sign an executive order to to immediately restore felon voter rights as a bridge until the constitutional amendment gains passage.

At the least, lawmakers could set requirements making felon identification processes more stringent during the interim years before voters can determine the ultimate fate of a constitutional amendment, said Sean Morales-Doyle, an attorney for the center, a nonpartisan institute based at the New York University School of Law.

"It’s great they (Reynolds and lawmakers) are moving towards a constitutional amendment, but it’s very important given the length of that process that they do what they can in the interim," Morales-Doyle said.

Iowa added more than 550 felony convictions to the list since December, according to records obtained from Secretary of State Paul Pate.

Pate’s office has previously outlined a matrix of problems involving a seven-step flowchart for how the review of Iowa's felon data and voting rights is supposed to work. Staffers in Pate's office contend the onus is on county auditors to make sure a voter's ballot isn’t wrongly rejected.

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

Pate, in response to questions related to this article, noted the ongoing work with courts and county election officials: "Everyone is going to have to step up. It's going to require a team effort," Pate said.

Des Moines residents will vote March 5 on the proposed 1-cent local sales tax, which would generate an estimated $37 million for property tax relief and quality-of-life initiatives. The other cities conducting votes are Alleman, Altoona, Pleasant Hill, Windsor Heights and West Des Moines.

Fitzgerald said that the court’s new directive is a start but that the database still has errors that he believes can’t be resolved by the manual checks of the new felony convictions being added to the database.

His office has adopted a process recommended from the Iowa secretary of state to cross-check the names of people who believe they are erroneously on the felon list, but Fitzgerald believes gaps in the system remain.

“At some point, someone has got to take ownership of this list,” Fitzgerald said “Until they clean up the database, there are always going to be problems.”

Check felon voter list

Go to this story at DesMoinesRegister.com to link to a copy of the felon voter list maintained by the Iowa Secretary of State's Office. Check whether your name is on the list, rightly or wrongly.