As customers entered Mario’s Westside Market on a recent Friday afternoon, they might not have noticed the nondescript table and its occupants sitting outside. There were no signs or group logos, just papers impeccably stacked on a table beside a pile of pens. Nearby, a neatly dressed Antoinette Banks, 42, sat in a folding chair next to her friend, watching streams of people come and go from the neighborhood store on Martin Luther King Boulevard. “How are you doing?” Banks asked those nearing the door, catching their attention. “Are you registered to vote?”
Many politely said yes and made their way inside. Others who declined cited their criminal history, prompting Banks to give her best sales pitch: Former inmates can register to vote in Nevada, and it only takes five minutes. “If they’re interested and listen, they’ll stop,” she explained. “Either you want to or you don’t.”
Fifty-year-old Wesley Ranson was one who stopped. Ranson said he was released from federal prison seven months ago after serving time for an armed bank robbery in 1994. “Everybody makes bad decisions,” he said. “Everybody is entitled to a second chance.”
Full Article: Voter registration effort reaches out to unlikely constituency: ex-inmates – Thursday, May 3, 2012 | 2 a.m. – Las Vegas Sun.