Inactive voter purge in spotlight

Ohio ruling puts pressure on Tennessee law

NASHVILLE — Citing a recent federal court ruling involving the state of Ohio, the Tennessee League of Women Voters and a public interest attorney are calling on Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett to stop purging thousands of infrequent voters from voter registration lists here.

“The League of Women Voters strongly supports efforts to enable all eligible Tennesseans to vote,” League President Marian Ott said in a statement Tuesday. “The law is the law, and Tennessee officials should follow the law and let eligible voters vote. It’s just not right to block eligible citizens from voting.”

They want Hargett to address the issue — attorney Stewart Naifeh, who was involved in the Ohio case, said Tennessee is acting “unlawfully” in purging inactive voters — before the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Early voting in Tennessee began last Wednesday and runs through Nov. 3.

The pressure on Hargett comes after September’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in an Ohio case involving purging registrations of inactive voters.

In their 2-to-1 decision, the judges overruled a U.S. district court judge’s decision and said

Ohio’s program violates the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

Ohio’s program canceled the registrations of citizens who had not voted in federal elections since 2008 and who didn’t respond to a subsequent letter requesting confirmation of their addresses.

The lower court later ordered the state to allow the purged voters to vote in the Nov. 8 general election.

The National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from removing voters for failing to vote, said Naifeh, senior council with the New York-based law firm Demos.

But he said Tennessee law authorizes exactly that: Voters who miss three federal elections in a row and who fail to respond to an official letter are purged from the state’s voter rolls.

Last week, Ott and Naifeh, who was involved in the Ohio case, both wrote letters to Hargett, whose coordinator of elections, Mark Goins, oversees Tennessee’s election process and 95 county election commissions.

Because Tennessee is in the same appellate court jurisdiction as Ohio, the decision there is binding here, Naifeh told Hargett in his letter.

Ott said by telephone Tuesday that Hargett, whose operation includes the Tennessee Election Coordinator’s Office, has yet to respond.

“We are reviewing the court’s ruling, as well as comparing our law with Ohio’s law,” Hargett spokesman Adam Ghassemi told the Times Free Press by email. “After our review, we will respond to the Demos law firm.”

Ghassemi said, “It’s important to note under a federal statute the specific purges being questioned are prohibited 90 days before the November 8th election. Voters may continue to be purged due to death, if the voter moves or if the voter commits a felony.”

He also said Hargett has met in the past with Tennessee League of Women Voters leaders and “will certainly accommodate this request after we’ve had time to review the pertinent rulings and statutes.”

It remains unclear, however, how many Tennesseans have been purged during the 2016 election cycle.

Naifeh said that, while the national act prohibits states from removing voters for failing to vote, Tennessee law authorizes election officials to purge voters who miss three federal elections in a row from state voter rolls.

As a result, he said, Tennessee is “not in compliance with Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act.”

“We urge you, as the State’s chief election official, to take immediate steps to bring the State into compliance with federal law by directing local election officials to cease and desist from canceling any voter registration based on voter inactivity and by implementing a process through which the ballots of improperly canceled voters can be counted,” Naifeh wrote.

He also told Hargett, “we are eager to work with you to develop a plan.”

“We are reviewing the court’s ruling, as well as comparing our law with Ohio’s law. After our review, we will respond to the Demos law firm.” – ADAM GHASSEMI, SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY OF STATE TRE HARGETT