What does Camacho think of that? "It wouldn't be fair, " he says. "I would have heard from the elections department. They would ask you to surrender your card."

Last week, the U.S. attorney's office vowed to look into ways to plug holes in the system. One possibility: a central database of disenfranchised felons. "We're examining what loopholes there may have been, " says Silvia Pinera-Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.

State election officials in Tallahassee say they hope to create such a database within 60 days -- a recommendation seconded by Circuit Court Clerk Ruvin.

On Tuesday, after inquiries by The Herald, Ruvin's clerks discovered more than 7,000 felons whose names were never reported to Dade election officials. Records show that five of them voted in the Miami election last November.

A computer slip-up, Ruvin explains.

ADDRESSES DIFFER

Some felons slipped up twice. Not only did they vote, but they voted from addresses where they don't live.

Donald Spence, 41, a former thief with bleeding ulcers and probation violations dating back to 1975, registered from his mother's senior center apartment complex. He says he uses it as his mailing address. His mom, 77-year-old Leonora Edwards, says she's partly to blame because she encouraged him to register. "He thought he was doing the right thing, " she says.

"Take my rights from me, " Spence adds. "But don't mess with my mother."

In addition to different addresses, some felons use different birth dates, different Social Security numbers and different identities.

Eladio Hernandez, a 59-year-old painter, says he is not the Eladio Hernandez who shot a man in the leg 17 years ago. But his voting application record carries the same Social Security number as the conviction record.

When Hernandez accepted a plea bargain, Judge John Tanksley asked: "Do you understand when the court adjudicates you guilty you will be a convicted felon under the laws of the state and as such you give up certain rights: the right to vote?. . . Do you understand that?"

"Yes, " Hernandez replied.

ABSENTEE VOTES CAST

Nine felons voted absentee, among them Ruth Dunwoody, who says voting "makes a difference. It's the only way to be heard around here."

Prosecutors and election officials admit the law disqualifying felons can lead to serious disparities. A soft judge with a heavy caseload may stop short of entering a formal judgment against a child molester, allowing him to continue to vote. But a pot smoker nailed by a hanging judge might lose his voting rights because of the felony conviction.

What's more, judges in crowded Miami-Dade courts accept plea bargains involving serious crimes that anywhere else in the state might result in convictions and a loss of voting rights.

"There are inequities, " says Janet Keels, coordinator of the Office of Executive Clemency in Tallahassee.

Records show that about half of the ineligible felon-voters were convicted more than a decade ago, some of relatively trivial offenses, such as possession of small amounts of marijuana and cocaine, illegal lottery sales, or acts that they say were part of growing up.

Terrence Patterson's crimes aren't exactly youthful indiscretions. Once, he threatened to kill a former boss, flashed a steak knife at a woman and swiped breakfast from the jail kitchen. But since his last conviction in 1994, he says he "started over fresh and clean."