The Tennessee Democratic Party, in conjunction with the Democratic National Committee, has undergone a thorough analysis of the publicly released voter files following news from Shelby County that nearly 500 voter’s had their voting history erased. The results of the review are nothing short of troubling, as all or parts of the voting history for 11,000 Tennessee voters are missing when compared with a voter file release from five months prior.
7,036 voters lost their 2010 Voting History
o 430 Absentee
o 4523 Early Vote
o 2173 In Person
5,993 Voters lost their 2008 Voting History
o 351 Absentee
o 4,305 Early Vote
o 1,337 In Person
1,771 voters lost both their 2010 and 2008 Voting History
43 Voters lost their entire voting history. These voters had some voting history on the December file, but have no voting history at all on the May 2012 file.
Purged: 29,010 (~1%) voters were purged between these two updates based on voter identification. NOTE: These purged voters are not included among those with missing voting history.
Chairman Chip Forrester has sent a letter to Tennessee’s Election Coordinator Mark Goins requesting “a full and detailed explanation” for the missing voting histories, as well as an independent review of the state’s voter file to identify any potential systemic flaws.
The Tennessee Democratic Party is working hard to ensure the integrity of our state’s voter file, because a failure to maintain an the records can have the unintended consequence of leading to voters being purged from voting rolls. We will continue to press for answers on this issue and will updated you on any future findings.
Read the full memorandum describing the problems with the voter.
Read Chairman Forrester’s letter to Mark Goins.
Read his response to Chairman Forrester.
See Also:
Tennessee: Missing Voter Records Challenged – Andy Sher
