Track-a-Trick: In Tenn, 1 in 5 Blacks are Barred from Voting [Racists Make it Hard to Vote to Promote the Illusion that Voting is Power. Your Vote Only Matters If the Election is decided by 1 Vote]
/From [HERE] One in five Black residents of Tennessee are prohibited by state law from voting. In combination with numerous other election barriers, advocates say, people of color have been broadly disenfranchised by white lawmakers maintaining their grip on power in the state.
Tennessee has one of the most draconian laws in the country stripping voting rights from people convicted of felonies. More than 450,000 citizens in the state, disproportionately Black and Latino, are affected.
“We are not going to have a fully functional electorate unless more people have access to voting,” said Kathy Sinback, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. “All of these policies have a disproportionate effect on our marginalized communities, our Black and brown communities. It truly is a remnant of what happened after the Civil War, when mass incarceration began and there was a concerted effort to disenfranchise, to police Black people to the point where they did not have full citizenship rights.”
Since the 2020 presidential election, access to voting and political representation has become even less equal.
In 2020, amid concerns about COVID-19 exposure, a court blocked the state’s requirement that first-time voters appear in person at a polling place. That ruling has since been overturned.
Voters must qualify under a specific set of circumstances to cast absentee ballots in Tennessee. Fear of COVID-19 exposure or transmission is not one of them. When casting a ballot in person, Tennessee voters face one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country. They’re required to present a photo ID issued by the state or federal government, and student IDs, even from state colleges and universities, are specifically prohibited. [MORE]