TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday ordered his Office of Executive Clemency to close some of the gaps that have prevented felons who have served their time from restoring their civil rights, including the right to vote.

Crist's order comes more than a year after he opened the door to a streamlined system that allows felons who have served their time and repaid their debts to restore their civil rights more quickly.

But the governor's actions are too little, too late for the American Civil Liberties Union which asked Crist in December to implement these changes then instead of waiting until there are only weeks left before the registration books close for the November election.

''This was a lost opportunity,'' said Muslima Lewis, senior attorney for the ACLU's Racial Justice and Voting Rights Projects. ``Had he issued today's executive order when we asked him to do so more than eight months ago, thousands more Floridians would have benefited. Waiting until August 27, when there are just over five weeks to register to vote for the November general election greatly diminishes the impact of the governor's action.''

Anyone convicted of a felony in Florida must restore their civil rights before they can register to vote and Crist and the Clemency Board made it easier for thousands of felons to start that process when they instituted major changes in April 2007.

Crist's order requires that a voter registration application be included in every restoration of Civil Rights Certificate mailed by the Parole Commission and allow them to immediately register to vote. But parole officials acknowledge that the state has lost track of thousands of felons and don't know how to notify them that they are eligible to have their rights easily restored.

Lewis said the governor's office promised to conduct a public awareness campaign to let felons know of the streamlined process but never followed through, and county elections officials still say they can't get a accurate data from the state to know who is eligible to vote.

Crist's order indicates that changes will be made to the Parole Commission website as well to allow individuals to look up and print a copy of their restoration certificate and get access to other information so they can more easily complete the rights restoration process.

The governor's order appears to be responding to a series of recent news stories, including a Monday story in the Orlando Sentinel. The paper found that only 9,000 of the 112,000 felons who are newly eligible to vote had registered by the end of the July. Another 7,300 might have registered but the paper couldn't verify it, and at least 96,000 eligible felons still hadn't registered.

Lewis of the ACLU said that had Crist issued the order in December, the Parole Commission would have had the benefit of the 60 employees loaned to them from the Department of Corrections to process Restoration of Civil Rights cases. Now, the Parole Commission staff has been reduced because of budget cuts and the loaned employees are no longer available to them.

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