Jan 16, 2025 Story by: Editor
The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments on Tuesday regarding a Tennessee policy that requires individuals with prior felony convictions to provide additional documentation to prove their eligibility when registering to vote. A district court previously ruled that the policy violated federal law.
The class action lawsuit, filed in December 2020, represents the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP and five individuals whose efforts to restore their voting rights before the November 2020 election were denied.
The lawsuit claims Tennessee’s process for restoring voting rights is “unequal, inaccessible, opaque, and error-ridden,” violating both the Constitution and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). Under current rules, Tennesseans with prior felony convictions who meet specific criteria can restore their voting rights by submitting a Certificate of Restoration of Voting Rights (COR) to a county election administrator. CORs are used to establish eligibility when such individuals register to vote. However, plaintiffs argued that inconsistencies in processing CORs across counties force individuals on a frustrating “wild-goose chase” to find officials willing to assist.
The plaintiffs have called for the state to implement a standardized, formal process for handling COR requests and decisions. They also demand the removal of undue burdens, such as requiring additional documentation, for eligible citizens attempting to register to vote.
Tennessee defended its current process in a legal brief, stating that the policy is “rationally related to its legitimate interest in combatting voter fraud, safeguarding voter confidence, and ensuring accurate record keeping.”
Disenfranchisement in Tennessee
In 2023, Tennessee ranked 49th in its treatment of voters with felony convictions, according to The Sentencing Project. The state denied voting rights to over 470,000 citizens, trailing only Florida in this regard. Tennessee also holds the nation’s highest rate of disenfranchisement among Black and Latinx populations, with one in five Black voting-age residents unable to vote due to a prior conviction. Between 2016 and 2023, fewer than 1% of eligible Tennesseans with felony convictions successfully restored their voting rights.
In April 2024, a federal district court in Nashville ruled that Tennessee’s policy violated the NVRA. The court found that requiring individuals with prior convictions to provide additional documents created an undue burden, especially since county election officials already have access to the necessary information to verify eligibility. The ruling stated this burden was one that other voters did not face.
Appeal and Legal Arguments
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) and Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins (R) appealed the ruling and secured a temporary suspension of the court order while the appeal proceeded. This allowed the state to continue requesting proof of eligibility documentation ahead of the 2024 election.
The appellate court will now decide whether the district court’s judgment was correct and whether the NAACP has the standing to challenge the policy. Drawing from a Supreme Court decision that upheld Arizona’s right to require proof of citizenship for state and local elections, Tennessee argued that states possess constitutional authority to set voter qualifications, which includes requesting “documentary proof of eligibility for applicants using state-created voter-registration forms.”
The Tennessee NAACP countered that state forms must still adhere to NVRA standards. The NVRA stipulates that voter registration forms should only request information necessary for election officials to determine eligibility and must ensure a uniform and nondiscriminatory registration process. Source: Democracy Docket
