When the General Assembly passed a controversial voter registration law earlier this year, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Gov. Bill Lee issued similar statements lauding the legislators’ work and paying routine homage to election integrity.
Aside from a lack of integrity in the making of that law, Hargett and Lee now face the possibility that it is doomed.
In pushing for enactment of the law Hargett told legislators that “we want every eligible Tennessean to vote [but] voter registration must be done… in a manner [that doesn’t compromise] the security or integrity of elections.”
Lee concurred, saying without evidence that the bill resulted from “circumstances… meant to create a lack of integrity in the voting process… and that’s why I signed the bill.” Obvious question: what “circumstances”?
The registration law resulted from a controversy that arose when the Tennessee Black Voter Project last year submitted some 10,000 voter registration forms, many of them flawed. That’s not unusual, unfortunately. Despite training sessions, volunteer signup efforts can be needlessly complicated, leading to mistakes.