More felons learning -- to their surprise -- that they can vote

There, on a litter-strewn street corner, her team ran into Lonnell Burke, who was waiting to catch a bus to a local drug rehab center. With cocaine and armed burglary convictions, Burke assumed he was barred from the polls forever. But thanks to a recent change in Maryland law, he found himself signing papers to become a registered voter.

"I didn't think the doors would ever open for ex-offenders to vote," said Burke, 50, who called the unexpected encounter "a blessing."

At least a dozen states have changed their laws since 2003 to allow more felons who are no longer in prison to cast ballots, reversing a long-standing trend.

And though studies show that felons lean Democratic, states led by Republican governors have loosened their voting rules, including Alabama, Nebraska, Nevada and Florida -- where officials have learned from the 2000 presidential race just how close an election can be.

States restored voting rights to about 760,000 felons in the last decade, according to tallies by voting rights groups, but data on how many have registered to cast ballots are sketchy. Whether these voters could tip an election in a presidential swing state is a matter of speculation.

But the new laws have produced aggressive registration drives this election season in the most unconventional of places -- soup kitchens, halfway houses, even Alabama state prisons.

"This is the first time in history that some of these places have ever seen this kind of civic activity," said the Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, who served time in prison. He now heads an Alabama nonprofit faith-based organization and has led efforts to register the state's current and former convicts.

Haven, 47, who is executive director of the group Justice Maryland, helped push the state to loosen its laws last year and now works to educate and register ex-offenders. She completed a prison sentence for white-collar crime in 2001.

The trend of restoring voting rights comes even while some states are adopting voter ID laws and other steps to ensure that only qualified voters cast ballots -- rules that critics say can disenfranchise some voters.