No standing for NAACP to sue over ex-felon documentation voter registration policy in Tennessee, 6th Circuit holds

Decision by Judge Murphy, joined by Judges Bush and Larsen, in Tennessee Conference of the NAACP v. Lee. From the introduction:

Tennessee grants the right to vote only to some convicted criminals. When processing voter-registration forms, then, state officials must distinguish between eligible and ineligible felons. To do so, the officials have required some felon applicants to include additional records with their registration forms that confirm their eligibility. The Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP asserts that this “Documentation Policy” violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The district court agreed and facially enjoined the policy. Yet the NAACP failed to establish its Article III standing to sue. The Documentation Policy does not directly regulate the NAACP. And although the NAACP generally alleges that the policy has led it to spend resources to help eligible felons register to vote, the organization did not introduce any specific facts showing that the policy threatened an imminent injury. Indeed, the NAACP did not identify a single voter that it has helped or planned to help. We thus reverse.

That said, the court did leave the door open: “We thus will leave this remedial choice (between granting summary judgment to the State or permitting NAACP to supplement the record) in the district court’s capable hands. That court may also assess what effect the State’s new voting law has on this case in the first instance.”

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