The race is on to get eligible Nebraska residents with felony records registered to vote

(This story was corrected to fix an error in the voter registration deadline for Nebraska residents. This has been updated.)

LINCOLN - Jason Kotas of Omaha did something most Americans take for granted: he registered to vote. While voter registration may seem routine for many, Kotas and around 7,000 other Nebraskans almost didn't get to do so this election because of their felony records.

With just over two weeks until Election Day, Nebraska residents with prior felony convictions—and completed their sentence— had until last Friday, Oct. 25 - to register to vote. This deadline follows an 11th-hour decision on Oct. 16 by the state's highest court after rejecting claims by Secretary of State Robert Evnen, a Republican, that the law passed in April violated the state constitution and ordered him to implement it immediately.

Kotas, who finished his parole in 2022, expressed relief at being able to go to the polls in November.

"I've been looking forward to this year, because I was going to be able to vote. I've been excited about that, and then that was kind of taken from me, like just out of nowhere," Kotas said. "It just kind of kicked the air out of me for a second."

Two Nebraskans with felony records, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, had sued Evnen after he announced in July he was directing election officials to prevent residents with felony records from voting. Before the new law was adopted, Nebraska, for two decades, had allowed residents with felony convictions to vote two years after completing their sentences.

After the court's recent ruling, advocates in the state raced against the clock to register voters in person leading up to last Friday's deadline.

The final sprint

While the court was deliberating, voting rights advocates were preparing to hit the ground running once a ruling was issued.

Civic Nebraska, an advocacy group, mailed out around 6,000 mailers before the court's decision. Since Oct. 16, they have knocked on over 125 doors of newly eligible voters and sent at least 2,000 texts, according to Steve Smith, the director of communications at Civic Nebraska.

"This is not a partisan effort to try to get one party out to the polls more than the others," Smith said. "This is the effect that it's having right now on the ground, as we hustle, as we're running on the treadmill."

"We're going to do what we can with the time we have," said Smith.

Advocates are reaching people across the state, but since most newly eligible Nebraskans reside in the Omaha metro area, that's where a lot of canvassing energy is going, according to Smith.

It's also the district that could deliver a consequential electoral vote to either presidential candidate due to the state's split vote. Two of its five electoral votes go to the candidate with the most votes, while three are awarded to the winners of the state’s three congressional districts.

Although the Cornhusker State is deep red, the 2nd Congressional District has gone to Democrats twice, including former President Barack Obama in 2008 and President Joe Biden in 2020, creating the term “blue dot.”

Jasmine Harris, the director of public policy and advocacy for RISE, a Nebraska nonprofit that provides re-entry support to people post-sentence, said after a lot of confusion and waiting, Nebraskans with felony records are relieved they get to vote in the election this year.

"Having this from the courts, I think, gives people a moment of relief and the ability to sigh and move into that next point of registering and voting," Harris said.

RISE and Civic Nebraska have boots on the ground, but Harris noted the challenges in completing these registrations, including the tight window and the limitations that come with in-person registration.

While some organizations, like the Malcolm X Foundation in Omaha, provided rides to county election offices for newly eligible voters, there were still registration barriers, including lining up work schedules when the offices were open.

But Harris still encourages those Nebraskans to show up to the polls.

"There's a lot of folks who always say, 'I don't vote because my vote doesn't count, it doesn't matter,'" Harris said. "It absolutely counts. Because if it didn't, they wouldn't try to keep taking it away and keeping it away from people."

Kotas, who is now a re-entry specialist with RISE, says he is looking forward to going to the polls with his wife on Election Day. He says while he is excited to vote for personal reasons, he also sees the ability to do so as a step in the right direction of integrating those with felony records back into communities.

"How do we keep giving people their dignity back?" asked Kotas. "We can't have people come out here and change their lives around and still be told there's certain things they can't do and they've already done everything that they got sentenced to?"

Reuters contributed to the reporting of this story

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Eligible Nebraska residents with felony records register to vote