Over 4,000 cases erroneously listed felonies affecting voting rights and background checks

About one in 10 felonies noted in the statewide crime database was deemed inaccurate by an internal review, Brad Cazort, repository administrator for the Arkansas Crime Information Center, said Friday.

The inaccuracies were found after the database was used by Secretary of State Mark Martin's office to flag potential felons in a separate statewide database of voters. Beyond voting, the inaccurate information affected background checks of Arkansans, including for those looking to buy a gun or get a job.

The errors came about because municipal courts called the crimes felonies in their paperwork, which the center used to compile the criminal database, but those municipal courts -- now called district courts -- cannot rule that someone is a felon, Cazort said.

The volume of inaccurate information was five times larger than previously expected. Initially, about 4,000 records were incorrectly called felonies on the basis of that error. On Friday, Cazort said that after the review, the number totaled 20,000.

Read more: http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2016/sep/03/20-000-cases-erroneously-listed-felonie/?latest