TENNESSEE DEPRIVES TOO MANY OF VOTING RIGHTS
Nearly one in 10 Tennesseans can not vote in this election due to a felony conviction. That’s just one of the sobering findings of a new report from my organization, The Sentencing Project.
Unfortunately, the Volunteer State isn’t showing any signs of reversing its disenfranchisement policies. While the number of disenfranchised people declined nationally from 2016 to 2020, Tennessee stripped voting rights away from thousands more people. And in late August, Gov. Bill Lee signed a law that would allow protesters who camp out on state property to be charged with a felony, which would automatically deprive them of their voting rights if convicted. People shouldn’t lose their right to vote for exercising their right to protest.
It is a gross injustice that so many Tennesseans are barred from the ballot box. We’re supposed to live in a democracy. But it’s a far stretch to say Tennessee is democratic when one in 10 people in the state can’t participate.
Felony disenfranchisement policies have pervaded the United States for decades. Maine and Vermont are the only states that never stripped people of their voting rights. Most states deprive people convicted of felonies of their right to vote while they are in prison, on parole, or on probation.
Tennessee has among the strictest rules in the nation. People convicted of certain felonies lose their right to vote permanently. For other felonies, people can only vote if they have completed their sentence, obtained a certificate of voting rights restoration, paid all court-ordered fines and fees, and made all child support payments, if applicable.
Across the nation, 5.2 million people can’t vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws, including nearly half a million in Tennessee. The number is 275,089 people in Georgia, accounting for about 4% of the population. In Alabama, 328,198 or 9%, are disenfranchised.
But Tennessee has the second highest disenfranchisement rate in the country, following only Mississippi. Notably, over 365,000 of these Tennesseans have already served their sentence, yet they can’t fully participate in the communities where they live.
People of color are disproportionately deprived of voting rights. All told, 22% of Black people and 11% of Hispanic people cannot cast a ballot in Tennessee.
Some lawmakers are mobilizing to change Tennessee’s policies. Last year, two Republican lawmakers — with support from the American Civil Liberties Union — introduced legislation that would streamline the process for voting rights restoration. It would also nix the requirement to pay court fines and child support. Regrettably, the legislation stalled in the House in June and stalled in the Senate in January.
If passed, the bill would be a step in the right direction, but it’s not a complete solution. The criminal justice system has no business dictating who should get to vote. No person should ever be disenfranchised — and every person convicted of a felony should have their voting rights restored.
Tennessee’s felony disenfranchisement rules are antithetical to democracy. It’s past time to change them.
Nicole D. Porter is Director of Advocacy of The Sentencing Project.