Felons must get gun rights back before they can vote, say Tennessee officials

Nearly half a million Tennesseans with felony convictions will be ineligible tovote in the 2024 elections unless they have the right to own firearms restored, officials say.

Under new rules quietly introduced by state election officials, felons can only be reinstated to vote once their full citizenship rights are restored, State Elections Coordinator Mark Goins told the Associated Press.

“Under the Tennessee Constitution, the right to bear arms is a right of citizenship,” Mr Goins said.

The new voter registration rules came into effect after a contentious Tennessee Supreme Court decision last June which barred a man from registering to vote after he received clemency for a crime committed decades ago in Virginia.

Election officials have interpreted the decision as meaning that all convicted felons who apply to have their voting rights restored must first regain full citizenship rights from a judge or show they were pardoned. 

The Tennessee Capitol in Nashville, where officials say felons will have to restore gun rights before they can vote

Voting rights advocates have blasted the interpretation as inaccurate, and say the ruling will disproportionately impact voters of colour.

The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group, filed a class-action lawsuit against Tennessee challenging the state’s voter reinstatement processes before the latest rulings came into effect.

It argued that the opaque rules governing voter restoration fail to provide clear reasons for a denial and don’t allow appeals.

Blair Bowie, director of Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote, told the Associated Press that state election officials “continue to twist the law into tortured knots” to prevent the 475,000 Tennesseans with