Tennessee Denies Voting Rights to Over 470,000 Citizens
Tennessee has the country’s highest rate of disenfranchisement for both Black and Latinx Americans.
Related to: Voting Rights, State Advocacy, Racial Justice
Tennessee denies the right to vote to more people with a felony conviction than 49 other states. Second only to Florida, 471,592 Tennesseans are excluded from participation in our democracy, representing 9.3% of the state’s voting age population. Tennessee has the country’s highest rate of disenfranchisement for both Black and Latinx Americans. Driving this nationally high disenfranchisement rate is the state’s suspension of voting rights for 68,810 citizens on probation and parole, and 377,157 citizens who have completed their sentence. To ameliorate this racial injustice and protect its democratic values, Tennessee lawmakers should extend voting rights to all people affected by the criminal legal system.
