The Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued an interim memorandum this week with guidance for overcoming what the committee says are “barriers” to voting within the state.
Among their recommendations are “expanding access to absentee voting, increasing the availability of polling place locations, and evaluating voting procedures to identify and eliminate any disparate impact on protected groups to guarantee the opportunity for all Tennesseans to engage in the political process.”
The committee hosted a series of web briefings this year, from which they gathered testimony as the basis for the memorandum which can be sent to the Tennessee General Assembly and Governor Bill Lee.
Committee Chair Shaka Mitchell said that barriers to voting became more pronounced during the pandemic in 2020, despite polling places remaining open during voting that year. In the memo, the committee stated that Tennessee “may be a more restrictive voting state than some other states.”
