“Jim Crow state”: How Tennessee prevents 21% of its Black population from voting
As states across the country loosen voter disenfranchisement laws, Tennessee continues to make it harder for felons to restore their voting rights
“I need to get out of the Jim Crow state.”
That was the first thing that came into Arealus Nash's mind when he first found out he could no longer vote in Tennessee.
Nash, who was previously convicted of a felony, is one of the roughly half a million Tenneseans who do not have the right to vote, equating to more than 9% of the state’s population.
No one informed Nash he had lost the right to vote.
“I was totally shocked when I tried to vote and they told me, when I tried to get a voters registration card, I couldn’t because I had been locked up,” Nash said.
This was the first time he had heard that being convicted of a felony meant he couldn’t vote anymore. By that time he had already served his time and he was once again a free man.
Under Tennessee law, people who have been convicted of a felony are banned from voting, even after their sentence is completed. Multiple studies show these laws and restrictions have resulted in a disproportionate disenfranchisement of primarily Black voters, with one in every five Black Tennesseans not having the right to vote as a result.
“No one ever said anything about that,” Nash said. “They don't even tell you about that, until you try to register to vote. Then they let you know.”
Across the U.S., multiple states have voter disenfranchisement laws, but almost none are as strict as those in Tennessee, with the state denying suffrage to more people than any other state in the country outside of Florida, according to The Sentencing Project.
“(It) has the effect of skewing the representation of Black and brown people in the electoral process,” said Wanda Bertram, communications strategist with the Prison Policy Initiative.
Tennessee also leads the country with the highest rate of disenfranchisement for both Black and Latin Americans, with 21% of Black Tennesseans and 8% of Latin American citizens in the state not having the right to vote, according to the Sentencing Project.
While voter disenfranchisement laws have a long history in the U.S., in recent years many states have worked to loosen the restrictions and return voting rights to felons. In some states, felons have their rights automatically restored after they are released from prison. In Vermont, Maine, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico felons never lose the right to vote.
“There's been bipartisan momentum over the years for restoring voting rights,” said Sara Carter, attorney with the Voting Rights Program at the Brennan Law Center. “In just the last six years, 14 states and [Washington] D.C. have changed their laws to allow more people with past convictions to vote, and that's been done in several different ways.
“Some of these states did so through legislation. In two states, the voters changed their state laws at the ballot box, and then in another two states, governors used their executive authority to restore voting rights.”
If Nash was still in his native Illinois, he would have gotten the right to vote returned to him automatically upon his release from incarceration, but he’s unable to go back. Nash serves as caregiver for his mother.
But while other states have eased restrictions, Tennessee has strengthened them, as recently as 2024.
The 21% How one-fifth of Tennessee's Black population lost their right to vote
In Tennessee, Black Americans are disproportionately affected. The rate for disenfranchisement for Black adults in Tennessee is almost four times the national average, according to the Sentencing Project.
Nationally, one in every 13 adults are disenfranchised, according to the 2022 report Locked Out by The Sentencing Project. Yet in Tennessee, for Black residents that number rises to one in every five.
“The vast majority of these citizens are living in their communities like you or I, but they're not allowed to vote,” Carter said. “It's fewer than 25% who are actually currently incarcerated.”
Disenfranchisement laws mostly affect Black Tennesseans because they are overrepresented in the criminal justice system.
In Nashville and Memphis, police arrest Black residents at roughly three times the rate of non-Black residents. Additionally, as recently as 2019, all elected District Attorney Generals in Tennessee were white.
“It's not a surprise that Tennessee has an extraordinarily high disenfranchisement rate,” Carter said.
Carter adds it’s not only the amount of people who get disenfranchised, but the process of having their rights restored is complicated, creating confusion.
Earle Fisher remembers, several years ago, he was asked to write a letter on the behalf of a member of his congregation. The parishioner had lost their right to vote and he was trying to get it back.
Fisher is a senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Whitehaven and he is also the founder of #UpTheVote901, a non-partisan organization which seeks to increase voter turnout in Memphis and Shelby County.
After the 2016 election, Fisher started to feel compelled to do something about voter apathy and voter disengagement in Memphis. But he found that many people, particularly Black people, did not vote because they were legally barred from doing so.
“There's no way to really do the voter engagement and empowerment work and voter education work in Memphis and Shelby County without dealing with how many people have been disenfranchised with felony convictions,” Fisher said.
Back when Fisher was asked to write a letter on behalf of his parishioner, the letter had to be sent to a lawyer, who would then take the case before a particular judge, according to Fisher.
But the process now involves many fees and forms, expungement processes and tracking down the correct government official.
“All of that stuff is just convolution," Fisher said. “It makes it more difficult.”
Tennessee’s election office confirmed a new requirement in January where felons would need to restore their right to carry a gun before they can restore their voting rights, following a state supreme court ruling that says felons need to get their full citizen rights restored by a judge before applying to restore their voting rights.
Similarly, in July 2023, Tennessee began requiring those convicted of a felony to have their citizenship rights restored by a judge or be pardoned by the governor, adding yet another step needed to gain back a basic right.
Tennessee is one of 10 states that requires additional steps even after your sentence is completed. All other states across the country either don’t restrict voting rights for felons or automatically restore their voting rights after incarceration or completion of their sentencing, including probation and parole, according to the think tank group, MAP.
As of 2023, to have voting rights restored in Tennessee, one must first have all their debts paid, including court costs, filing fees, restitutions to the victim and be up to date with all child support payments, according to Georgetown Law.
For many like Nash this is an impossible task.
“I have to pay over $50,000 in order to vote again,” Nash said. "How are you gonna fine an indigent person? If I had $50,000 I wouldn’t been [to] jail.”
A significant percent of currently or formerly incarcerated people owe court fines or fees. Over half of respondents to a survey by the organization Free Hearts reported that they previously or currently owe some type of court fine or fee.
Paying the fees and fines and getting a pardon is still not enough to regain the right to vote; a government official, such as a parole officer or a criminal court clerk, also needs to sign off a Certificate of Restoration, and many of these officials are not trained in how to do it, according to the Sentencing Project.
This lengthy process leaves many outside of the probability of completing it. Nash, for example, has been working to get his suffrage back for half a decade.
Between January 2020 and September 2022, 2,034 Tennesseans were successful in restoring their voting rights, which amount to less than 1% of the people who had completed their sentence, a 2023 Tennessee report by the Sentencing Project states.
“The real question is, why do they feel it’s so important to keep people from voting? Why are they making it so extremely hard to keep people from voting?” said Tennessee State Representative Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis).
Yet, multiple experts agree, the disenfranchisement of ⅕ of the Black population in Tennessee was not an accident consequence of these laws, rather it was an intentional goal.
A Purposeful Origin The history of disenfranchisement laws
Although the history of disenfranchisement laws can be traced back to Ancient Greece and comparable laws existed before the Civil War, it wasn't until Black men were allowed to vote that these laws became the true barrier to voting that they are today, Carter said.
“When it comes to the origins of these laws, this discriminatory impact it's not an accident,” Carter said. “After the Civil War, a lot of states enacted a wide range of criminal laws that were designed to target Black citizens, at the same time, [they] adopted laws revoking the right to vote from anyone who was convicted of a crime.
“And these laws were being enacted at the same time as poll taxes, literacy tests and other Jim Crow laws that were trying to make voting harder for people of color.”
Bob Libal, senior Organizing Consultant at the Sentencing Project, voiced the same idea, agreeing that voter disenfranchisement laws “descended from the same motivation” of measures like poll taxes and literacy tests that disproportionately prevented Black people from voting.
“Southern lawmakers were determined to ensure that Black voters could not vote,” Libal said.
In 1840, only four states had codified felony disenfranchisement measures, but by the eve of the Civil War that number had risen to 24. By 1870, 28 out of 38 states had the right to vote removed for those convicted of a felony, according to a study of felon disenfranchisement by Sarah C. Grady, a lawyer who focuses on the rights of incarcerated individuals. 1870 was the same year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, giving the right to vote to men of all races.
“Many of these laws, particularly in Southern states, come from origins following the expansion of suffrage to Black men, and they're really continuing to have that effect to this day,” Carter said.
BEYOND THE LEGAL BARRIERS
While Tennessee does not publish election voter turnout by race, and one-fifth of Black voters are not legally allowed to vote, the reality is that a much larger number of Black voters face additional barriers to exercise the right to vote.
“We're also seeing harms that are spillover effects, harms to families and communities,” Carter continued, saying studies have shown the disenfranchisement of the head of the household can discourage kids and the rest of the family from participating.
“[It] makes sense if you think about how a lot of people experience voting for the first time, it's political engagement.”
But while these social barriers affect households, in neighborhoods with high incarceration rates the problem leaks to the community.
These barriers, Bertram said, go beyond the legality. “There's the larger impact of having a criminal record, which can mean for one thing, a lot of people who are formerly incarcerated don't know they can vote.”
In Tennessee, this is a persistent problem because of the complicated process to restore voter rights.
“A chilling effect is where people get discouraged from trying at all, because either they say or have been conditioned to say, ‘It doesn't matter,’ or they feel as though the reward won't be worth the burden of trying to go through all of the process of restoring,” Fisher said.
Trial and Error Failed attempts to restore voting rights, and new paths forward
The topic of felons not being allowed to vote has gained recent attention as Former President and 2024 Presidential Candidate Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts.
Among the repercussions of his new felony status, the former president will have his gun permit revoked and, if he gets jail time, he will also not be able to vote.
Florida, where Trump resides, has similar laws to Tennessee where felons have a permanent disenfranchisement for some people unless the government approves their restoration.
But, because the crime was committed in New York, Trump will be able to vote as long as he is not incarcerated in November.
“It never changes until it's one of them,” Parkinson said. “But, in this state, felons can't vote. Can't vote, can't carry a gun, can't serve on the jury, can't run for office.”
Parkinson is one of many local lawmakers who have attempted to restore voting rights in the state.
In January 2024, Parkinson filed bill HB 2380, alongside Senator Paul Bailey (R-Sparta), the bill would’ve let Tennessee residents convicted of felonies to apply to regain their right to vote, without restoring their gun rights.
On April 10, the bill was deferred to summer study, effectively killing it for the session.
Similar bills have been attempted in the past.
In 2021, Senator Brenda Gilmore (D-Nashville) and Representative Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) introduced a bill that would allow suffrage restoration by applying for a voter registration card and by entering a child support payment plan. But, like with Parkinson’s bill, the bill was deferred to summer study where it died.
In late April, voting restoration advocates gained a victory, as the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled that state election officials cannot deny voter registration to eligible Tennesseans, even if they have a past felony conviction. Additionally, the officials must inform potential voters of the eligibility requirements for voting after a felony.
If convicted of a felony, whether or not you don’t have the right to vote depends on the date of the conviction. And, any conviction of a felony in Tennessee that happened on or after May 18 1981 causes the person to lose their voting rights, even if the felony was convicted by another state.
EXPANDING VOTING RIGHTS COULD HELP SOLVE PUBLIC SAFETY
One of the ideas behind the expansion of voting rights is that, under the current system, felons continue to be punished, even after they complete their sentence.
Bertram said 25% of people who've been to prison are unemployed which she said is in part due to employer prejudice.
Beyond finding a job that provides a living wage, housing, healthcare, education and simply being able to meet the basic needs are elements that act as desistance from committing a criminal act, according to Kristen Budd, research analyst for The Sentencing Project and co-author of the 2023 policy brief “Increasing Public Safety by Restoring Voting Rights.”
But another element that helps in preventing crime is restoring voting rights.
“Voting rights help people feel connected to their community, like they have a voice in the communities that they're living in,” Budd told ABC24 in an interview.
One of the reports analyzed for the brief, compared states where people gained their right to vote after being released from prison versus states like Tennessee, where people did not gain their rights back simply for finishing their sentence.
“What they found was that when rights were restored, there was [a] less likelihood of having [another] arrest. We have other studies that show those same patterns,” Budd said. “So for us, voting rights and the restoration of voting rights, it's another strategy that we can use to improve community safety and the lives of folks in their communities.”
The brief states, people who had their voting rights automatically restored were approximately 10% less likely to relapse.
Budd mentioned that expanding voting rights is just one strategy to promote public safety that should be part of a “package of policies.”
“Voting rights is one of those things that research shows us to be related to help alleviate crime, but crime is so multifaceted, right?” said Budd. “We have to tackle a lot of things to solve the crime problem, and one of those is reinvesting in communities.”
Libal says the vast majority of people who are incarcerated are going to come home to our communities and so it is essential to set them up for success when they come home.
Currently, Tennessee not only limits voting rights but those who have been incarcerated also face difficulties finding employment, and there is a limit or complete ban on getting housing assistance and other public benefits.
Felons also cannot hold a state or local office, all of which accumulate in a punishment that continues even after they complete their sentence and serve their time.
“Tennessee has always made it incredibly difficult for felons to get back to a productive life they want,” Parkinson said. “They want individuals to pay for their mistakes […] for the rest of their life.”