Voter registration groups could face fines for too many incomplete forms under new bill – The Tennessean

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Ranked second to last in the nation for voter turnout and nearly as bad in voter registration, Tennessee is faced with a problem: Getting residents to the polls. Nashville Tennessean

In the lead up to last year’s midterm election, efforts to register Tennesseans to vote led to a noticeable influx of applications — and eventually a legal challenge. 

In Shelby County, one organization turned in 10,000 forms on the final day of registration, according to Secretary of State Tre Hargett. 

A similar significant increase in new voter registration was seen in Davidson County as well. 

But many of the registration forms contained incorrect or incomplete information, according to election officials. 

As a result, Hargett’s office is behind a new bill that would require groups leading voter registration efforts to undergo training and potentially face fines for submitting too many incomplete forms. 

The bill’s introduction has drawn concern from several groups, including the League of Women Voters and the Equity Alliance, a nonprofit group advocating for African Americans and people of color. 

Deficient applications could lead to fines

This week, HB 1079 and SB 971 are set to be heard in legislative committees in their respective chambers. 

Although the language of the bill was initially broadly written, lawmakers recently amended it in the House to specifically require groups organizing voter registration drives to undergo training. The legislation also requires groups to turn in registrations in a timely manner. 

The proposal also would assess a civil penalty against groups that turn in more than 100 deficient voter registration applications. 

In an interview Monday, Hargett said the bill seeks to ensure that elections run smoothly while limiting the financial and other burdens state and local officials face when registration forms are turned in at the last minute. 

But Charlane Oliver, a board member of the Equity Alliance, said the legislation would discourage groups like hers from being involved in the registration process.

In a recent op-ed published by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee, Hargett said election administrators in Shelby and Davidson counties spent upwards of $200,000 and $35,000, respectively, to process the registration forms. 

Hargett said Monday that holding registrations until the last minute can have a compounding effect that puts additional burdens on election officials. 

“There’s really no good reason for the person who wants to register, holding their form for two months,” he said, equating the move to hold registration forms until the filing deadline to shopping on Christmas Eve.

But Oliver, who also works as a community liaison for U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, told Grand Divisions, the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee’s policy and politics podcast, that the legislation comes after a major effort to register African American voters.

Oliver said the Equity Alliance was part of a larger group, known as the Tennessee Black Voter Project, that initially sought to register 55,000 voters before last year’s election. The group, she said, ended up registering 91,000 voters. 

With thousands of forms being turned in each week, Oliver said some forms that were incomplete were not turned in until just before the registration deadline. 

Hargett said thousands of the last-day registration forms contained incomplete or difficult-to-verify information. Some, provided to the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee, had little more than a first or last name. Such registration forms would be considered deficient. 

The Tennessee Black Voter Project asked for the registration forms to be processed and were denied by Shelby County administrators, eventually leading to legal action. 

Under the bill, if an organization had more than 100 deficient forms, they could face a civil penalty. 

Mark Goins, the state’s elections coordinator, said despite the fact that the federal voter registration form, which many groups use, has a place for a person’s Social Security number, it would not be considered deficient if such information was not included. 

“Most of the problems we had in fact were on a federal form,” he said.

Hargett denies bill is ‘retaliatory’

But Oliver said she was intrigued by the fact that officials were pushing back on the registrations, given the organizers.

“This bill feels very retaliatory in nature because we’ve been doing voter registration for decades and quite often we don’t run into issues,” she said.

“We don’t really hear about mistakes being made but all of the sudden now we’re running into this issue now that we’re registering African American voters.”

Hargett rejected the notion that the legislation arose out of the increased effort to register African Americans. 

“It comes out of a massive number of deficient forms in Shelby and Davidson county,” he said.

He said the bill encourages quality voter registration while even encouraging online registration. 

The House version of the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Tim Rudd, R-Murfreesboro, is set to be taken up in committee on Tuesday. The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Ed Jackson, R-Jackson, is expected to be considered in committee on Wednesday. 

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Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.

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