• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voter registration>

Tennessee abandons its crackdown on voter registration

Our Staff
April 03, 2020
Tennessee capitol and state flag

The repeal was one of the last measures cleared before Tennessee legislators cleared out of the statehouse because of the coronavirus pandemic.

DustyPixel/Getty Images

Tennessee has repealed regulations on voter registration drives enacted less than a year ago, and under challenge in court ever since.

The rules, enacted and now abandoned by the overwhelmingly Republican General Assembly, appeared to be the strictest in the country governing efforts to sign up new voters.

Proponents said the aim of the law, which included criminal penalties for overzealous canvassers, was to prevent fraudulent sign-ups and intimidation. Opponents sued, saying the restrictions set unconstitutional limits on political behavior and were illegally designed to suppress the vote of minority groups and college students.


GOP Gov. Bill Lee signed a measure changing the law Thursday. It was one of the last measures cleared before lawmakers abandoned the statehouse until June because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The original law was written last May in response to a surge in registrations during the 2018 midterm campaign, when the state had one of the most competitive Senate contests in the nation. Local registrars said they were overwhelmed with paperwork that often proved incomplete or had inaccurate information.

The statute made it a misdemeanor for registration groups to pay workers based on quotas, or to enroll more than 100 voters without completing a new regime of government training and paperwork on a tight deadline. Submitting more than 100 incomplete new voter forms was also made a crime, as was the employment of out-of-state poll watchers.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote and the NAACP all sued, arguing their registration efforts were being effectively silenced in a state that, despite the 2018 uptick, still has some of the lowest registration and turnout rates in the nation.

Settlement talks had reportedly intensified in the days before the Legislature moved to repeal all the provisions being challenged.

"Community voter registration drives serve a critical role in our democracy: these community-based civic engagement efforts are badly needed in Tennessee and cannot be replaced," Michelle Kanter Cohen of the Fair Elections Centers, a voting rights group. said in a statement.

From Your Site Articles
  • Movement to restore felons' voting rights keeps growing, and in ... ›
  • 'punitive' new registration rules in Tennessee ›
  • Rights groups sue to stop Tennessee crackdown on voter registration ›
  • SPLC puts $30 million toward voter registration - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Register to vote in TN ›
  • Tennessee wants to make it harder to hold voter registration drives ... ›
  • Tennessee voter registration law blocked by federal judge ›
voter registration

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

Grand Canyon gap in America today

Dave Anderson

Chief Justice John Roberts and Chief Justice Roger Taney are Twins– separated by only 165 years

Stephen E. Herbits

Conservatives attacking Americans’ First Amendment rights

Steve Corbin

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Julio A. Alicea

Policymakers must address worsening civil unrest post Roe

Sarah K. Burke

Video: How to salvage U.S. democracy from the "tyranny of the minority"

Our Staff
latest News

The American school meal debate: It all comes down to food as market goods or public goods

C.Anne Long
5h

It’s time to retire Calvinism

Debilyn Molineaux
5h

Podcast: On democracy and its current torments

Our Staff
5h

America’s greatest resource- Education

William Natbony
29 September

The Carter Center and Team Democracy unite to advance candidate principles for trusted elections

Ken Powley
29 September

There is no magic pill for postpartum depression

Priya Iyer
28 September
Videos
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Our Staff
Video: The history of Labor Day

Video: The history of Labor Day

Our Staff
Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: On democracy and its current torments

Our Staff
5h

Podcast: Is reunification still possible?

Our Staff
27 September

Podcast: All politics is local

Our Staff
22 September

Podcast: How states hold fair elections

Our Staff
14 September
Recommended
The American school meal debate: It all comes down to food as market goods or public goods

The American school meal debate: It all comes down to food as market goods or public goods

State
It’s time to retire Calvinism

It’s time to retire Calvinism

Contributors
Podcast: On democracy and its current torments

Podcast: On democracy and its current torments

Podcasts
America’s greatest resource- Education

America’s greatest resource- Education

Big Picture
Grand Canyon gap in America today

Grand Canyon gap in America today

Elections
The Carter Center and Team Democracy unite to advance candidate principles for trusted elections

The Carter Center and Team Democracy unite to advance candidate principles for trusted elections

Big Picture