Release via email:

The state of Tennessee imposes strict limits on eligibility for voting absentee and uses criminal penalties to deter people from assisting voters with obtaining absentee ballots. In the midst of a global pandemic, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Campaign Legal Center filed a lawsuit today on behalf of two individual voters and organizations whose many members are not eligible for vote by mail under current law, but wish to avoid exposing themselves or elderly family members to coronavirus. 

“It is more difficult to cast an absentee ballot in Tennessee than in most other states. This is bad enough in normal times, but Tennessee’s laws are particularly offensive during a time when more voters than ever before need to vote by mail because of the current public health crisis,” said Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Criminalizing the mere provision of a request for an absentee ballot is outrageous under any circumstances. Failure to provide a procedure for voters whose absentee ballots were rejected because their signatures did not match signatures on record is fundamentally unfair. And not allowing voters to vote by absentee ballot if they fear that they or their loved ones would contract COVID-19 if they vote in person effectively takes away their right to vote.” …

To read the complaint, click here.