Tennessee State Election Coordinator Mark GoinsNASHVILLE — Tennessee’s secretary of state says his office’s Division of Elections, county election officials and others have conducted “unprecedented” efforts to educate voters about a new law requiring a photo ID to vote.
“Our focus, up to this year’s elections and beyond, is educating voters about what this law will mean to them,” Republican Secretary of State Tré Hargett said in a news release Thursday. “Our voter outreach efforts so far have been unprecedented.”
The law, passed this year by the Republican-led General Assembly, takes effect Saturday. Republicans said the law was needed to deter voter fraud, though state officials have been able to point to only one such case.
State Election Coordinator Mark Goins said the law “helps us combat a specific type of election fraud known as voter identity theft. This type of fraud is very difficult to detect, absent safeguards like requiring photo IDs.”
Democratic critics are worried it will keep tens of thousands of minority, elderly, young and low-income Tennessee residents from voting in the March 6 presidential primary and other 2012 elections.