Tennessee Voting Rights Activists Fight New Registration Restrictions

Young people have the power to greatly impact the 2020 election. In many states, they showed this power in 2018, when youth voter turnout rose 16 percentage points from the previous midterm election, marking the highest level in midterm participation among youth in the past quarter century. In states like Tennessee — which has historically low youth voter turnout rates — young voters, and particularly young voters of color, were inspired to come out in record numbers.

This uptick in turnout came about thanks to the work of groups like the Equity Alliance and the Tennessee Black Voter Project, which registered massive numbers of young Black voters outside of churches, laundromats, and nightclubs. Meanwhile, campus organizers with groups like the Andrew Goodman Foundation made sure their classmates were registered at the state’s HBCUs and other colleges. In all, the groups registered over 91,000 new voters in the state.

But following this effort to engage young Black voters, Tennessee implemented new restrictions on voter registration drives.