Activists and Legislators Renew Focus on Tennessee’s Strict Felony Voter Disenfranchisement Rule
October 24, 2024
By: Emma Skeen
Of the nearly 4.4 million Americans who are ineligible to vote because of a prior felony conviction, over 470,000 of them live in Tennessee. According to recent estimates, the state has one of the highest rates of felony voter disenfranchisement in the nation, with almost 10% of Tennesseans unable to vote because they have a prior conviction. The state’s voter eligibility policy has a disparate racial impact as well: it currently bars over 20% of black Tennesseans from voting.
These high numbers have been linked to the state’s strict and complex voting rights restoration procedures. The state strips voting rights from a person convicted of and maintains a multi-step process for rights restoration. This process first requires a person to either receive a pardon for their crime or have their “full rights of citizenship” restored (the latter option being its own process that includes petitioning the state for the return of an individual’s gun rights). Then, an individual must ensure that they have no outstanding court, restitution, or child support costs. Critics of the state’s policy point out that these steps are much more complicated than they seem at first glance and that the process is inaccessible to many people with felony convictions because of the resources needed: time, money for court and attorney costs, necessary information to complete and file paperwork, and the ability to track down various state officials and make a successful appeal to them. Of those who do tackle this complex process, only around 1% succeed in regaining their voting rights.
The state’s restoration policy is being litigated, though it’s unclear how those efforts will turn out. In 2020, the Campaign Legal Center and Tennessee NAACP filed a suit claiming that the process unfairly restricted the voting rights of those with felony convictions. In April 2024, a federal district court ruled on a motion for summary judgment that the state’s voter registration forms did not adequately inform potential voters of felony eligibility requirements. It also found that the state’s policy in reviewing those documents required unnecessary information and documentation, thus denying voting rights to potential voters who would otherwise be eligible for rights restoration. However, in September, the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court’s injunction of the state’s documentation policy, holding that, under Purcell, changes to the state’s voter registration procedures could not be made so close in time to the state’s August primary elections. Furthermore, the court found that the NAACP had not proven that it was harmed by the documentation policy to establish standing. As the case has yet to be settled in the courts, questions about the validity of the state’s rights restoration process remain.
Amidst this uncertainty, legislators are looking into ways to ease the process of returning voting rights to Tennesseans with felony convictions. One proposed bipartisan bill would remove the requirement that a person must have their other rights restored before seeking voting rights restoration, but was stalled in the state legislature earlier this year. Another would have automatically restored rights to people with felony convictions upon their release from confinement or probation but failed in the House Criminal Justice Committee. These are just a few of several bills that have been introduced in the Tennessee legislature in recent years (from both sides of the aisle) that have recommended amending the rights restoration process in various ways. This multitude of proposals may spur action, as, in light of these numerous proposals, the chairman of the Tennessee House Criminal Justice Committee has recognized the complexity of the state’s current process and has asserted an interest in adopting legislation that streamlines the process.
Ultimately, Tennessee still implements a strict, lengthy rights restoration process that continues to bar thousands of people with felony convictions from voting. While the path forward for the state is unclear, it seems that this issue has gained renewed attention and increased calls for a more straightforward system.