Lawyers with the Prison Reform Advocacy Center, a Cincinnati-based group that sued Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell last month, said state officials had promised to provide the notice if the group agreed to drop a lawsuit.

That federal lawsuit claimed that as many as 21,000 convicted felons in Ohio are deprived of their right to vote each year because of bad advice from election officials.

The advocacy center voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit last week, but a letter from Attorney General Jim Petro this week challenged the agreement to end the suit and threw the case into doubt.

"They're jamming us up," said David Singleton, a lawyer for the prisoners group. "Now we're running out of time. It's incredibly frustrating."

The deadline for registering to vote is Oct. 4. Because all votes could be crucial in a hotly contested presidential election, Singleton said Petro and Blackwell, both Republicans, might have political reasons to stall.

State officials say the dispute is about the law, not politics.

The letter from Petro states that the agreement cannot be enforced because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction was not a party to the lawsuit, even though its representatives indicated they would provide the notice.

Under Ohio law, felons can vote as long as they are no longer in prison. But Singleton said his group had found that all 88 Ohio counties gave bad advice when felons called to ask about registering to vote.

Singleton's group now must decide whether to file another lawsuit or work out another agreement.

E-mail dhorn@enquirer.com