"If the system has a glitch, " Patterson says, "it's not my fault."

'I DIDN'T KNOW'

Nineteen years after Eduardo Alonso wounded a man with a knife, he turned his life around and thought he had put his felony behind him. "I thought everything was OK, " says the 71-year-old motel owner, a registered Republican. "I didn't know I lost my voting rights because of the sentence. Having known it, I would not have voted. It's not very important to me."

In addition to knifers and muggers, felon-voters include stalkers and confidence men (and women). Nelson Torres, 44, a former corrections officer, cast an ineligible ballot. In 1985, police say, he let two inmates escape in exchange for two grams of coke.

And Irving Perez, an insurance agent, registered to vote in 1976 and never stopped -- even after his conviction in 1995. He got 20 years of probation for swiping tens of thousands of dollars from an elderly church woman.

"I know I'm not allowed to carry a gun, " says Perez, 55. "But voting is not something they made clear to me."

Felons themselves disagree on which voters the state should disqualify. "It depends on what the person did, " says Dunwoody, the woman convicted of welfare fraud. "I mean, I'm not a killer."

Some are. James Joy III, 35, an ex-flasher, got eight years in 1993 for pummeling to death a cellmate on the psychiatric floor of the county jail. He cast a bad ballot.

RECEIVED VOTER CARD

One night in 1989, Jorge Alfredo Gomez, a factory worker, drank too many beers at a party, passed out at the wheel, and ran over a homeless derelict sleeping on a bus bench. He went to jail for seven months. Sitting in a darkened living room, his face covered with stubble, surrounded by pictures of his family, Gomez covers his face and expresses regret.

"I had no idea I was voting illegally, " says Gomez, 44, a native of Guatemala who became a U.S. citizen after his jail term. "I filled out the forms and they gave me the card. . . . I had a voting card, so I voted."

According to state records, about one of four felons successfully completes the clemency process. It's often cumbersome and time-consuming.

Holtz, the former banker, says he filled out the paperwork himself and is waiting for a decision from Tallahassee. Daniel Gunder, 31, a former coke user, couldn't wait. He petitioned for restoration of his civil rights a month before the mayoral election, but he voted without his restoration certificate, according to clemency clerks in Tallahassee.

"I thought that the fact that I went to vote without a problem meant that my right had been automatically restored, " Gunder says.

Two people acquitted of crimes by reason of insanity did receive clemency and certificates restoring their voting rights.

'A PIONEER CITIZEN'

Sitting in his tidy one-bedroom apartment, 81-year-old Leonard Sands holds back tears as he talks about the two men he shot dead. He was convicted of killing one in 1973, then was acquitted, by reason of insanity, of a second death 17 years later.

"I'm a pioneer citizen, " says Sands, who lets the neighborhood kids play with his plastic spider. "I was born and raised here. I served in the war. I've been a taxpayer all my life."

Another person with restored rights is Mary Johnson, 73. After 17 months 10 days in the county jail for a 1975 manslaughter conviction, she waited two years for her rights. Today she keeps a picture of Jesus on the wall, is an activist Democrat who works at the polls, and proudly displays her certificate.

She's not wild about either Miami mayoral candidate. "They're both crooks, " she says.

This article is based on reporting by these Herald staff writers: Karen Branch, Tyler Bridges, Alfonso Chardy, Manny Garcia, Lisa Getter, Rick Jervis, John Lantigua, Marika Lynch, Sandra Marquez Garcia, Patricia Maldonado, Connie Prater, Ken Rodriguez, Joe Tanfani and Andres Viglucci. It was written by Viglucci, Tanfani and Getter. Herald research editor Dan Keating and Getter handled computer analysis and researcher Elisabeth Donovan and Annabelle Degale provided research assistance.