Amber Smith thought she’d never be allowed to cast a ballot in her home state of New Mexico. Thirty years ago, when Smith was 18, she was convicted of a marijuana-related felony and sentenced to three-and-a-half years probation. At the time, New Mexico still barred people with a felony from voting for life, but the state passed a reform in 2001 to restore residents’ rights once they finish their sentence. By then, Smith had completed her probation. Still, when she tried to register to vote, she was told by the state she was ineligible because of her record. 

Thinking that there might have been a misunderstanding, Smith sent in registration forms several times over the next 25 years, all of which were denied. Then last March, the state adopted House Bill 4, also known as the New Mexico Voting Rights Act, establishing that anyone convicted of a felony can vote as long as they are not incarcerated, including while they are still on probation and parole. 

Feeling hopeful that the new law may clear up whatever confusion had caused the state to keep turning down her applications, Smith logged on to the New Mexico Secretary of State’s website and filled out another registration form. Again, she received a letter titled, “notice of rejection due to a felony conviction,” stating that she was ineligible. Smith said she was confused and disappointed but trusted state officials’ assessment of her eligibility. 

“I thought that because they were telling me I couldn’t, they knew better than I did,” she told Bolts. “ I was like, ‘What the hell? Maybe the law didn’t change.’”

It wasn’t until organizers reached out to Smith to tell her that the state was wrongly denying voters with felonies from registering online or in the mail that she realized she’d been right all along. Last month, Smith registered to vote at the clerk’s office in Bernalillo County, home to Albuquerque. This time, instead of trying online, she went in person, with organizers to help her if any issues came up. 

“It felt awesome. I felt like a citizen,” she remembered. “I felt like I was never going to be allowed to vote, that right was something I’d never be able to retain.”

When HB 4 went into effect in July 2023, making New Mexico one of 25 states where at least anyone who is not presently incarcerated has the right to vote, it was cause for celebration for the voting rights organizations that championed the reform for years. But in the time since, they have run into many people like Smith who told them they were denied their rights.

While working to register newly eligible voters, organizers identified nearly 1,000 people with a felony conviction who had tried to register to vote online or in the mail but were incorrectly rejected. They also realized this problem was pervasive long before HB 4, affecting people like Smith. They sounded the alarm, but it wasn’t until they filed a lawsuit last month that state officials took action to fix the problem and ensure that the people affected will be able to vote in November. By that time, they had already missed out on voting in the June primary. 

Voting rights advocates are hopeful the state’s adjustments will be enough to renew confidence among those who were wrongly refused, but some say they’ve had to work overtime to make up for the damage the state has already inflicted.

“They could have done this a year ago, and not cause the confusion or the strain on a population, which is already vulnerable because they’re impacted,” Selinda Guerrero, director of prisoner advocacy for the organization Millions for Prisoners New Mexico, told Bolts. “They’re humiliated because they’ve already tried and been told no and turned away and told you don’t belong here.”

Justin Allen, an activist with Millions for Prisoners who is formerly incarcerated and testified for the reform in the legislature, put it bluntly: “It’s been a year of frustration.”

Problems with the implementation of HB 4 started to arise shortly after Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed it into law last year. The bill, championed by Democrats, was intended to introduce widespread enhancements to voting rights across New Mexico. Along with narrowing felony disenfranchisement, the bill established a new system for automatically registering voters who interact with the Motor Vehicles Division and created policies aimed at making voting easier for Native people. 

“Passing a bill is one piece of it, but then it’s the implementation, that’s the other piece,” said Andrea Serrano, executive director of OLÉ New Mexico, a civil rights group that supported HB 4.

In states that expand rights restoration, the burden of getting the word out about the reform and telling people about their new rights often falls on outside groups and volunteer organizers. But in New Mexico, a swath of errors by the state made the implementation even tougher.

Blair Bowie, director of the Restore Your Rights project at the Campaign Legal Center, a legal advocacy group working on voting rights cases, told Bolts that the rules of who is eligible to vote under HB 4 are clear: “If you’re in prison you can’t vote. If you’re not in prison, you can,” she said. 

She blames the issues with its implementation on longstanding problems with information sharing between state agencies. 

Last month, Bowie represented Millions for Prisoners, Smith, and three other people who had been denied because of a felony in filing their lawsuit detailing violations of state law. The lawsuit alleged that the state gave county clerks—the local officials in charge of voter registration—incorrect guidance about how to handle the changes. It claimed that Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver’s office told them that newly eligible formerly incarcerated voters had to register to vote in person and they should deny anyone who applies by mail or online. 

Also, for much of 2024, the online registration forms on the secretary of state’s website incorrectly said people with felony convictions who have yet to complete probation and parole cannot register. They also required people to sign an affirmation that they’d finished the entirety of their sentence if they wanted to register, under penalty of perjury. The forms were only updated in late September, and roughly 14 months after HB 4 went into effect. 

Just over a week after filing the lawsuit, the plaintiffs reached a settlement with state authorities addressing those problems. 

It mandates that elections officials immediately correct their errors by registering anyone who was wrongly denied. It also requires that, going forward, the secretary of state’s office and the New Mexico Department of Corrections share information to help elections officials determine if an applicant with a past felony is eligible to vote. 

The corrections department also created a hotline for county clerks to call to confirm whether a person is incarcerated. 

Alex Curtas, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, told Bolts in an email that Toulouse Oliver “has long been committed to making sure every New Mexican who is eligible has the opportunity to register to vote in accordance with state statute and federal law.” Curtas said the office had provided updated printed forms to county clerks in July 2023 and had uploaded them to the website but some links still directed registrants to the old forms. He also noted that the state had been working to fix the registration problems leading up to the election by the time the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit.

Bowie says public authorities often fail to update each other about who has regained the right to vote, an issue that Bolts has covered in other states.  “States are generally quite good at coordinating information when somebody gets initially convicted of a felony, so when they initially lose their right to vote,” she said. “But they’re generally really bad at getting the information they need on the other end to remove markers of ineligibility.”. 

New Mexico’s corrections department is required to distribute voter registration forms to people shortly before they’re released from prison, since they’ll become eligible once they’re freed. That still leaves it up to would-be voters to complete and submit the forms, and hope that officials respond correctly. Michigan last year became the first state to automatically register people to vote when they leave prison, without requiring them to take any action. 

Some voting advocates in New Mexico also want to repeal felony disenfranchisement entirely and allow people to vote from prison, as is already the case in Maine, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.. Besides restoring voting rights to the roughly 5,000 people who are currently incarcerated in New Mexico, this would also reduce the risk that people who are already eligible to vote are denied. This proposal has failed in the past in the legislature, but Millions for Prisoners New Mexico says it plans to bring the bill back in the next session. 

The court will only assess whether the state followed the settlement terms in January, months after the election, according to Bowie. But at least the 1,000 people whom advocates identified as wrongfully denied are now registered, and Blair is hopeful that New Mexico’s fix will provide a model for information sharing in other states putting legislation into practice.

She also thinks that the settlement terms will help people who plan to take advantage of same-day voter registration. “It will ensure that there’s not going to be any confusion about their eligibility,” said Bowie. 

The deadline to register by mail or online passed on Oct. 8, but voters can still register in person during early voting until Nov. 2, and on election day on Nov. 5. Organizers are using the final days leading up to the election to educate newly eligible voters that they can cast a ballot. 

Guerrero also said the settlement terms seem to be fixing registration issues. In test calls to the hotline, she confirmed that staffers are providing accurate information. “So far so good,” she said. “Now it’s just more about the outreach and the re-education…trying to help people have hope again that they’re not going to be turned away.”

Allen said he’s spending his days mailing postcards and calling people who were wrongly denied and will now be able to vote. Some, he said, have told him that they don’t want to try again. 

“We have a conversation with them and remind them the reason they’ve made it so hard is because it’s so important and these barriers are designed to make us think that we don’t matter, our voices don’t count,” Allen said.

Smith was able to cast her vote last week during early voting. It wasn’t her first time voting—she got to cast a ballot in another state in 2008 and 2012 while she briefly moved away from New Mexico—but it was important to her that she finally be able to participate in the state where she was born and raised.

Walking into the polling place, Smith said she felt nervous but couldn’t pinpoint why. She shared her story with an election worker and it brought them to tears, she said. 

“It made me want to become more politically knowledgeable,” Smith recounted of the experience. “It ended up being a very exciting and empowering feeling.”