The system designed to determine if a felon can vote is broken. If you want to know how badly, consider the case of David Tuttle of Kent.

Tuttle, 31, has been on the voter rolls illegally since 1993, the same year he served 110 days in jail for burglary.

He has voted in more than 20 elections since 1994, including casting his ballot for Christine Gregoire in November. All along, he believed what he was doing was legal. "I didn't get anything that said my civil rights was squished," he explains.

On April 5, in the midst of the political and legal firestorm over illegal votes in the governor's race, Tuttle was mailed a new voter-registration card by the King County elections office. A day later, he received a certified letter from the Prosecutor's Office telling him he was illegally registered and was to be removed from the voter rolls. The next day, he received a ballot for a special election set for April 26. Two days later, a duplicate ballot arrived.

"If it's so illegal to vote, why are they sending me ballots?" he asks.

The answer is this: The system to prevent felons from voting illegally — and to help them regain the right to vote — is so bewildering that almost nobody negotiates it well. It has been the backwater of election law, alternately ignored or tinkered with to the point that, as King County Superior Court Clerk Barbara Miner observed, "You need a degree in government to figure it out. I'm sure it's not clear to the average defendant."

Over the years, the responsibility for enforcing the law has shifted from the parole board to the Department of Corrections to county clerks, many of whom resent the burden and struggle with it. The law has been amended three times in the past three years.

A Seattle Times review of hundreds of court files statewide — and interviews with state officials, county clerks and dozens of felons — showed that enforcement of the law is haphazard. Hundreds, if not thousands, of ineligible felons have been registering and voting with impunity for years.

"It's been like this for the last 20 years," said Pierce County Clerk Kevin Stock. "But no one ever paid attention because there wasn't an election this close."

Efforts to streamline the system by automatically restoring voting rights to felons after they get out of prison have failed in the Legislature four times in as many years. Meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the state last year, claiming that a law requiring felons to pay all their fines and restitution before regaining the right to vote amounts to an illegal poll tax that discriminates against the poor.

Unrestored rights

The Times investigation turned up at least four cases where it appeared felons had not had their rights restored — despite being eligible — because of a clerical error or failure by authorities to follow the law.

Others have won back their right to vote, but the documentation isn't in their court files. As a result, they've been hounded by prosecutors and vilified by the political parties as illegal voters in the Rossi-Gregoire lawsuit. In some cases, they were able to provide the proof to The Times.

In order for felons to legally vote in this state, they must get a pardon or a Certificate and Order of Discharge signed by a judge. To get a discharge certificate, the felon must complete all of the requirements of his sentence — including any prison term, supervision, community service and treatment — and pay all fines and restitution.

Once those conditions are met, the certificate is supposed to be issued automatically. But just who is responsible for overseeing the discharge, and how, has changed three times in the past 25 years. The confusing result is that, depending on when a felon was convicted and how quickly he complies with his sentence and pays his fines, there are at least five ways a discharge can be obtained.

Currently, two agencies are primarily responsible for discharges. The Department of Corrections supervises felons to ensure they comply with the requirements of their sentences. It should issue a discharge if those requirements are met and a felon pays his so-called "legal financial obligations" while still under department supervision.

However, a law passed in 2003 sharply curtailed the department's supervision of tens of thousands of low-risk felons. The new law shifted the responsibility for collecting unpaid fines — and overseeing orders of discharge — to the state's 39 county court clerks.

The law states specifically that, once all of the obligations are met, "the county clerk shall notify the sentencing court ... which shall discharge the offender."

But that isn't always happening.

Pierce County, among others, puts the burden on the felon.

"It's strictly the responsibility of the defendant to get the paperwork, get it filled out, and get it signed," said Stock, the Pierce County clerk. "We've just got so many cattle going through the barn, it's almost impossible."

In King County, where prosecutors file more than 12,000 charges a year, seven deputy clerks work full-time collecting fines and, when appropriate, completing the paperwork for discharges, said Deputy Clerk Joel McAllister, who heads the office's financial operations.

While he thinks the system is working fairly smoothly, he admits that when the Department of Corrections turned over the collections two years ago "there was plenty of stuff that slipped through the cracks."

"We had something like 14,000 cases transferred to us over the course of a couple of months," he said. "There was some slop."

Removal from rolls

There are problems at the front end of the justice system, as well.

When a felon is convicted, court clerks are supposed to alert auditors in the county where the felon lives to remove that individual from the voting rolls. Often, though, the information isn't sufficient to distinguish felons from other voters with the same names or birth dates. And in some counties, those notices of conviction are routinely shredded so there is no way to know not to register that person later.

The clerks also are supposed to notify auditors when a discharge is issued. But the ACLU says it found last year that at least seven of the state's 39 election offices had not received a single order of discharge from their respective clerks.County election officials point out that if a felon has moved from one county to another, there is no way to know if that person can legally register to vote. A new statewide voter-registration database scheduled to go online next year should help by allowing election officials from one county to know when another county has taken an action against a voter.

Motor-voter registration, which encourages people to register when they get or renew a driver's license, adds to the confusion by making it convenient for everyone to register, including felons.

Compounding the problem: aggressive get-out-the-vote drives by political parties and special-interest groups.

Wendy Watson, 44, who was convicted of theft in 1995, said one particularly pushy man outside a Safeway store in White Center last fall promised he'd help restore her right to vote "in no time" if she registered with him. Later, she got a registration card in the mail and assumed everything was taken care of. She voted for Gregoire.

Last month, county prosecutors notified her that she was registered illegally. She assumed the man probably was being paid for each voter he registered.

Even state agencies have added to the confusion.

Herschel Durham, 25, went to prison for possession of methamphetamine in 2000. After he got out two years later, he enrolled in vocational classes through the state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

While he was in the class, a case worker helped him register, even though the agency knew of his criminal history. In November, he voted for Rossi.

"We are mandated by law to offer registration to customers when they come to us," explained division Director Mike O'Brien. "But we are not in a position to make eligibility decisions. That's the county's job."

Additional restriction

Washington's additional requirement that felons pay their fines and restitution before they can vote makes it one of the more restrictive states in the nation.

The U.S. Justice Department in 1996 reviewed state laws regulating felon voting rights and found a "national crazy-quilt" of disqualification and restoration procedures. The department found most states restore rights after a felon leaves prison.

Department statistics in 2000 showed that about 4.7 million Americans had lost their voting rights through felony convictions, or roughly 2.2 percent. In Washington, the number was about 158,000 felons, or 3.6 percent.

The easiest solution, according to critics, would be to adopt a law like Oregon's, which allows felons to vote, hold public office and sit on a jury once they leave prison.

Gov. Gregoire supported a bill that would have done that in this year's legislative session.

"It would solve this whole problem," said Gregoire, whose victory in November is being attacked in part because of illegal voting by felons. "Otherwise, we have a virtual debtors' prison."

The bill backed by Gregoire died without a vote by lawmakers.

This story was reported by Mike Carter, Jonathan Martin, Emily Heffter, Nick Perry and David Postman and written by Carter.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com