This story was originally published by the Nashville Banner. Sign up for their newsletter at nashvillebanner.com/newsletters.
As the U.S. Senate considers passing the SAVE America Act — a second attempt by the Trump administration to increase voter ID requirements around citizenship, sprinkled with anti-transgender policies — Tennessee elections officials are bracing for a slew of different state and federal election changes that could hit just before the state’s busy election season.
With statehouse, congressional and gubernatorial elections on the calendar this year, plus a smattering of local clerk, judicial and school board races, any election changes could pose implementation challenges or confuse potential voters due to the short run-up.
The SAVE Act would require stricter proof of citizenship at the time of registration and photo IDs to vote. Republican supporters of the bill claim the bill would crack down on non-citizen voting, though just 0.04% of voter verification investigations show any noncitizen involvement. Democrats and voting rights advocates argue that the bill would disenfranchise those who don’t have all of their required documents and disproportionally burden those who have had name changes, like married women no longer using their maiden names.
Still, Tennessee’s Director of Elections Mark Goins says the state is “not in bad shape” when it comes to heightened election security requirements, because the state is already among the strictest in the country.
“The timing is somewhat of a challenge, you know, we’d rather in an election year, not have many election-type changes, because you like to have stability,” Goins told the Nashville Banner. “But it won’t be that many changes for us.”
Since Tennessee already requires photo ID to vote, the main changes would be the citizen verification during registration, which Goins said will look a lot like the process of obtaining a Real ID.
For those who have changed their names, Goins said there’s limited guidance for states, but the federal government would have to come up with an affidavit to sign explaining the name change when you register. But, even four months out from the registration date for the August primaries, it’s unclear how that will be handled.
“(The federal government) will be charged with issuing guidance to where there’s nonconforming names, meaning that the name is different from the birth certificate,” Goins said, noting that he thinks — if the bill isn’t amended — the affidavit could be signed at the time of registration, and shouldn’t impact those already registered.
While other states have been asked to provide additional voter roll information to the federal government as the Trump administration seeks to nationalize voter data, with those that decline being sued for the information, Tennessee has already shared the information with the feds, according to Goins.
But, since Tennessee was among the first states to share voter data with the federal government, he’s not sure how the duplication will work with the SAVE system.
“We’ve already done it. This requires (us) to do it again, so I guess we would have to work the same to figure out a way to where the duplication doesn’t throw off their system,” Goins said, noting that they’ve been in contact about flaws in the new federal system.
Since Tennessee already restricts mail-in ballots and would have a little extra time to confirm to new ID requirements, Goins said that provision of the SAVE Act wouldn’t hit Tennessee particularly hard.
“There’d be a little difference with those voting absentee by mail, but that takes effect in 2027, and we don’t actually have a lot of folks that vote by mail,” Goins said.
Other new state policies could also affect this year’s elections, allowing more formerly incarcerated people to vote and potentially requiring voters to register with a party, thereby excluding independent voters from the primary process.
NO FINANCIAL BARRIERS
A state bill that has already passed both chambers will remove financial barriers for felons seeking to restore their voting rights, beginning this year.
The bill by Sen. Raumesh Akbari, D-Memphis, and Rep. Karen Camper, D-Memphis, removes a requirement that someone seeking restoration pay all outstanding court costs and fees before their rights can be restored, and also softens rules around child support payments. Instead of requiring a petitioner to be 100% caught up on child support, the bill allows those who have complied with child support payment plans for 12 months to restore their rights.
Akbari said in a statement last week that she has wanted to change this law since learning eight years ago that Tennessee is the only state that ties child support payments to the right to vote.
“From that moment, I knew we had to fix it. The issue of financial disenfranchisement has handcuffed people who have exited the justice system — people who have served their time, paid their restitution and are trying to rebuild their lives,” Akbari said. ” Today, Tennessee begins correcting that injustice. This was a bipartisan effort, and I’m proud of what we accomplished.”
The bill, which has passed the House and Senate and is awaiting Gov. Bill Lee’s signature to become law, will go into effect as soon as it is signed and comes after a 2024 decision by Goins tied felony rights restoration to the right to bear firearms, confusing and stunting the restoration process for some felons.
While the new bill does not untangle the dense clerical barriers many seeking restoration face, it does lift financial requirements, which the sponsors compared to a modern-day “poll tax,” and argued was exclusionary for people seeking to vote.
PARTY AFFILIATION
Another bill lingering in the legislature would require voters to register with a specific political party upon registering to vote, moving further away from the “open” primary model.
From 2000 to 2023, the state had fully open primaries, allowing voters to vote in either party’s primary. Then, the legislature passed a law allowing voters to cast ballots only in primaries if they are “bona fide” members of the party, to discourage so-called “crossover voting,” wherein a voter may cast a ballot to influence the nomination process of a party for which they do not intend to vote in a general election.
The new bill, proposed by Rep. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, and Sen. Suan Lynn, R-Mount Juliet.
“It really provides a clean and simple process to accomplish this,” Lynn said.
New voters would designate their party preference, and returning voters would be asked to designate when they go to vote in the next primary election.
After that, Lynn said voters could change their affiliation by updating their registration, like if one’s address or other personal information changed.
But independent voters who do not wish to register with a political party would not be able to participate in primary elections.
Lynn defended this decision in a subcommittee meeting in February, saying that parties should be able to decide their own nominees without nonaffiliated voters weighing in.
“The point is, for the parties, it’s their primary, and they want their members of their party to be voting on the nominee for the general election,” Lynn said. “And so, independents, if they don’t have a preference, if they haven’t decided on a political party, they would just sit out the primary election, and they would just get to vote in the general election on the final candidates.”
Rep. Jason Powell, D-Nashville, was critical of the bill in that same meeting, noting that the state had a long history of allowing crossover voting, which allowed voters who don’t consistently align with one party to participate fully in democracy.
“My concern here is that this is going to have a chilling effect on people who are more independent-minded,” Powell said.
“We are now creating logistical problems for people that want to vote and are going to create barriers,” he added.
Lynn’s bill still needs to move through committees and floor votes in both the House and Senate to pass, but it would require work for the state to update voter registration forms and the voter rolls before this year’s elections, which the state’s fiscal analysis office estimates would cost more than $120,000.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.