CLC Calls Out Tennessee’s Voter Intimidation Effort Targeting New Americans
Washington, DC — Yesterday, news broke that the Tennessee secretary of state’s office sent over 14,000 letters asking certain voters to prove they are American citizens before the November election. Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at Campaign Legal Center (CLC) issued the following statement in response:
“The freedom to vote should be accessible to every American, regardless of where they were born. Tennessee’s use of unreliable data to target and harass new Americans into canceling their voter registration is textbook voter intimidation disguised as list maintenance and only aims to sow fear among voters.
“There is no place in our democracy for state-sponsored voter intimidation, including by demanding that naturalized citizens ‘show their papers’ to prove they are sufficiently American after they have already affirmed their citizenship through the voter registration process.
“Federal law provides safeguards to protect eligible voters from being wrongfully removed from the voter registration rolls, and states like Tennessee are not permitted to demand additional documentation from voters — including naturalized citizens — based on stale and faulty data. CLC calls on Tennessee election officials to clarify that voters will not be removed from the registration rolls based on unreliable and outdated data so every Tennessean can participate in a free and fair election without fear this November.”
Background:
Voter list maintenance is a routine practice that, when done correctly, increases the accuracy of voter rolls by removing people who pass away or who no longer live in the state. Voter list maintenance is conducted in every state according to state and federal law to ensure that voter lists are kept timely and up to date without wrongfully removing eligible voters from the rolls.
Federal law, specifically the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), prevents states from systematically removing people from voter rolls based solely on unreliable sources of data — like Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) data. DMV information is not a reliable enough source for citizenship information, as it only reflects an individual’s status at the time of their last interaction with the DMV — not their current citizenship status.
For example, if someone goes to the DMV to get a driver’s license while they are a legal permanent resident and then later becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen and registers to vote, the DMV’s information about that person’s citizenship status will be out of date. Stale data should not prevent any American from exercising their freedom to vote.
The NVRA also prevents states from requiring new Americans to provide additional documentation to prove their citizenship beyond the information and affirmation required of all voters.
When voter roll maintenance is done incorrectly, voter purges can occur — which can result in large swaths of eligible voters being incorrectly removed from their state’s list of registered voters and denied the freedom to vote. Voter purges tend to disproportionately target new Americans, people with past felony convictions, low-income voters, young people and voters of color.
CLC sued Texas’ secretary of state over their voter purge effort in 2019, which unlawfully targeted tens of thousands of naturalized citizens for removal from voter registration rolls based on stale and unreliable citizenship data.
Read a first-hand account of how voter purges targeting new Americans intimidate voters and undermine their freedom to vote here: “I’ve Been a U.S. Citizen Since 2015. My State is Threatening to Purge Me from the Rolls,” by Texas voter Julie Hilberg.
Tennessee’s use of overly broad criteria for denying Americans their right to vote is also the subject of another lawsuit, Tennessee NAACP v. Lee. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee recently ruled that Tennessee’s practice of denying voter registrations from all applicants with prior felony convictions and demanding documentary proof of eligibility violates the NVRA because — like people who at one time were non-citizens — not all people who have been convicted of felonies are disqualified from voting in Tennessee. Tennessee’s practice of requiring certain citizens to provide additional burdensome documentation before being able to register and vote is a clear violation of federal law.