SEC. TRE HARGETT HIT WITH 2ND VOTE-BY-MAIL-FOR-ALL LAWSUIT
Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett is already being sued by the NAACP & The Equity Alliance, groups seeking safer voting-by-mail for all during a pandemic.
Currently Tennessee only allows those over 60 and people who meet certain requirements to vote absentee.
Now Hargett has been hit with ANOTHER lawsuit at the state level, this time by a bipartisan group of voters, including a pastor.
You can read the lawsuit from Hunter Demster, Earle J. Fisher, Julia Hiltonsmith, Allison Donald, Ginger Bullard, and Jeff Bullard HERE.
Under “Nature of The Suit” it reads:
“Plaintiffs contend that, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis and the uncertain but growing population distribution of the novel coronavirus (the “Virus”), restricting Tennesseans’ vote-by-mail access to voters over sixty years of age, or who otherwise meet one of the other absentee- ballot qualifications enumerated under Tenn. Code Ann. § 2-6-201, would impose impermissibly burdensome conditions on the Individual Plaintiffs and others’ right to vote under the Tennessee Constitution.
Furthermore, enforcing these restrictions during the pandemic would constitute one or more unlawful classifications of Tennesseans, violating of the Equal Protection Clause of the Tennessee Constitution. In the alternative, Plaintiffs contend that the only constitutionally compliant construction of certain Tennessee statutory language allows for a Tennessee-licensed physician to certify the entire population of a county “medically unable to vote” because of the danger posed by the pandemic.
Plaintiffs’ claims sound strictly under Tennessee state law. They assert no claims arising under or substantially related to federal law.
Tennessee is at the bottom in voter turnout. Hargett was recently torched by a federal judge for his voter registration criminalization bill.
WATCH: We had a lengthy discussion with @sectrehargett about what’s next for his voter registration criminalization bill, which he pushed after 90,000 black Tennesseans registered to vote – but was just BLOCKED & TORCHED ? by a federal judge.
Just kidding, he ran from us. ? pic.twitter.com/zZoEYLGkJW
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) January 14, 2020
This all reeks of calculated voter suppression. Holler at Hargett to let him know we need vote-by-mail for all:
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