Judge upholds Tennessee law with heavy penalties for sharing absentee ballot request forms
A Tennessee law that blocks sharing absentee ballot application forms will remain in effect, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Tennessee voters must apply for a vote-by-mail or absentee ballot by completing and submitting an application to their local election commission, who will then handle the process of sending out ballots to those eligible voters.
Those applications are widely available. The Secretary of State's office and local county commissions often put them online for individual voters to download, print and mail.
But state law imposes a felony charge for anyone who shares those applications with another person if they're not an employee of an election commission.
Voting rights activists last summer sued the state in an attempt to overturn the law. They argue handing out the application is an effective part of get-out-the-vote campaigns to put the tools in people's hands more easily.
But the state says they're focused on minimizing election fraud and there are other, more secure ways to get the form.
U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson denied a motion for an injunction against the law in September, ahead of the presidential election last fall.
More: Legislation challenging Tennessee's 2020 election results unlikely to advance
He reiterated most of the same arguments in Tuesday's ruling.
"The Court must decide for itself what the Law does and does not prohibit. And as the Court explained at considerable length in its Preliminary Injunction Opinion, the Law simply does not prohibit any conduct that is expressive," he wrote. "Accordingly,
the Court concludes that the Law does not restrict expressive conduct and thus is not within the scope of the First Amendment."
The plaintiffs include the Memphis and West Tennessee AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, The Equity Alliance, and Memphis A. Phillip Randolph Institute and Free Hearts.
Most of them were also named plaintiffs in a separate federal lawsuit against the state's rules on first-time voters. That suit also failed to make major changes after initial injunctions; the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in June undid a lower court's decision.
"Of course, we agree with Judge Richardson’s order and his recognition of the General Assembly’s responsibility and authority in protecting the integrity of Tennessee’s elections. Additionally, we are grateful for the great work of the Attorney General’s office," Julia Bruck, spokesperson for the Tennessee Secretary of State's office wrote in an email Wednesday.
A request for comment sent to attorneys for the voting activists was not immediately returned.
Reach reporter Mariah Timms at mtimms@tennessean.com or 615-259-8344 and on Twitter @MariahTimms.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee ballot application-sharing punishments upheld by federal judge
