Campaign Legal Center Challenges Tennessee’s Arbitrary Rights Restoration Process for Voting

NASHVILLE, T.N. — Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) is appearing in Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville, Tennessee for a hearing. CLC filed a lawsuit in December 2024 on behalf of Ernest Falls to compel Mark Goins – Tennessee’s Coordinator of Elections – to notify Mr. Falls’ county election officials that his constitutional right to vote has been restored. This lawsuit, which was filed in conjunction with Free Hearts and Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison, PLC, is the latest attempt to challenge the state’s arbitrary rights restoration process that deprives impacted residents of their ability to actively participate in the democratic process. 

“Our democracy is strongest when our elections are more inclusive and accessible to everyone who can participate in the process,” said Blair Bowie, director of Restore Your Vote at CLC. “When election officials change the rules for rights restoration arbitrarily, as is the case in Tennessee, people like Ernest Falls continue to be wrongfully excluded from the democratic process. The state of Tennessee must change course and affirm the right of citizens like Mr. Falls to vote.” 

In 1986, Ernest Falls was convicted of a single felony in Virginia for which he has long since served his sentence. Since moving to Tennessee six years ago, Mr. Falls has navigated a complex and shifting obstacle course in order to restore his right to vote. 

The Tennessee Division of Elections, led by Coordinator Mark Goins, has imposed ever-changing requirements on Tennesseans like Mr. Falls who are seeking to restore their right to vote. Despite spending years in litigation and trying to comply with shifting requirements, Mr. Falls is still unable to vote in the state of Tennessee. 

While reforms to rights restoration laws are ongoing, millions of Americans nationwide with past felony convictions have been systemically deprived of their right to vote. Tennessee likely has the highest rate of disenfranchisement in the United States because over 470,000 citizens — including over 21 percent of Black voters — cannot vote in the state due to prior felony convictions. 

“Mr. Falls did everything required, yet Tennessee officials keep changing rules, just like they do for hundreds and thousands of others,” said Dawn Harrington, executive director of Free Hearts. “We have to keep standing together and fighting to stop this injustice and Free the Vote." 

Despite the challenges that people like Ernest Falls face to vote, Tennesseans across the political spectrum are overwhelmingly in favor of rights restoration. CLC will keep pushing for states like Tennessee to follow its law to restore the rights of people with previous felony convictions to vote so that they can be full participants in the democratic process.