Politics
Tennessee plans to restart voter screening with SAVE after court ruling
Tennessee will resume using a federal database tool to screen voter rolls, even though the state has not publicly documented what happened to 42 people it previously flagged. The screening cannot be used to make major voter-roll changes during the 90 days before an election.
Tennessee plans to resume screening its voter rolls with a federal database system that has drawn questions about its accuracy, the Secretary of State’s office said after a Supreme Court ruling cleared states to use the tool again.
The system, known as SAVE, compares voter records with federal data, including information from the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration, to check citizenship and immigration status. Tennessee was among the first states to adopt it.
Last year, Secretary of State Tre Hargett said his office had referred 42 people identified by SAVE as potential noncitizens who had voted to the FBI. He also warned that illegal voting could bring felony charges.
The Secretary of State’s office declined to provide an update on how many of the 42 people were confirmed to be noncitizens, removed from voter rolls or prosecuted. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville said no one had been charged with illegal voting in the past year. Court records showed no such charges in East or West Tennessee, either.
The Davidson County Election Commission said no noncitizens had been removed from voter rolls in Nashville and that the Secretary of State’s office had not notified the commission of any ineligible noncitizen voters during the past year.
A federal judge had ordered states to stop using SAVE, citing concerns that the system could produce unreliable results. The Supreme Court overturned that decision last month, allowing states to resume screening voter records.
The ruling will not affect eligibility in the current election. Federal law bars major changes to state voter rolls within 90 days of an election.
At least one previous use of SAVE has raised concerns about false matches: voting groups in Texas said the system incorrectly identified more than 2,000 U.S. citizens as noncitizens.
Sekou Franklin, a Fisk University political science professor who works with voting and civil rights groups in Tennessee, said widespread noncitizen voting is not a significant problem. He warned that inaccurate screening could create fear and distrust in elections.
Franklin also noted that eligible U.S.-born voters are more commonly caught committing election fraud than noncitizens. The state has not provided enough information about the 42 Tennessee referrals to establish what the system identified or what action followed.