TN NAACP v. Lee
Under current law, Tennessee automatically strips anyone convicted of a felony of the right to vote. The result of this policy is that more than 9% of the total voting age population of Tennessee — and more than 21% of the African-American voting age population — cannot vote. Tennessee has the second highest rate of disenfranchisement among African-Americans in the United States. In 2010, Tennessee changed its law to guarantee that those who had completed their sentences had their right to vote restored, but the voting rights restoration process created was so convoluted as to make it essentially impossible to regain the right to vote.
Financial means should not be a requirement for voting, yet Tennessee requires individuals to pay off all court costs to complete their sentences so that their voting rights can be restored. If unable to pay, there is a process for claiming indigency, but in practice this process is so unclear that applicants are unable to take advantage of it. There is no definition of what qualifies as indigency and what costs count as court costs. Applicants in some counties are also required to pay a modern-day poll tax in the form of a fee to restore their rights.
The result is a system of wealth-based discrimination: those with financial means can have their rights restored, but those without cannot. Phil Telfeyan, Executive Director of Equal Justice Under Law, states, “There can be no ‘justice’ system when the right to vote depends on how much money you have or your ability to navigate an archaic and arbitrary system designed to shut people out. There is no right more basic to the health of a democracy than the right to vote, and Tennessee’s voter suppression scheme means systemic exclusion of hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans from the political process. Tennessee is effectively silencing many of its people, but today that silence ends.”
Equal Justice Under Law and its partner organizations, the Campaign Legal Center, Baker Donelson, and Free Hearts Tennessee, are asking the state of Tennessee to implement simple and clear procedures to ensure the restoration of the right to vote for all who are eligible.
Update as of March 2022: Judge Campbell, Jr. denied the Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, giving forward momentum to our case.
case details
Order Denying Motion to Dismiss
Status: Ongoing
Date Filed: 12/3/20
Plaintiffs: Tennessee Conference of the NAACP on behalf of itself and its members and Lamar Perry, Curtis Gray, Jr., John Weare, Benjamin Tournier, and Amanda Lee Martin
Defendants: Governor of the State of Tennessee William Lee, Commissioner of the Department of Correction of the State of Tennessee Tony C. Parker, Coordinator of Elections for the State of Tennessee Mark Goins, Secretary of State of Tennessee Tre Hargett, and Rutherford County Clerk of Circuit Court Melissa Harrell
Jurisdiction: The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee
Partners: Campaign Legal Center, Baker Donelson, and Free Hearts Tennessee
IMPACT
Case is ongoing. Two early victories have been secured. First, as of March 2021, Tennessee has updated its voter registration form to be more clear about who among those with felony convictions is eligible to vote. Second, Rutherford County has agreed to stop charging an application fee for the Certification of Restoration, which is a necessary pre-requisite to registering to vote.