Judge halts Tennessee law that restricted mail-in voting

A federal judge on Wednesday halted a Tennessee law that restricted voting by mail by mandating that first-time voters show their identification at an election office before voting.

U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson, a Trump appointee, filed a preliminary injunction saying he was worried “about how his decisions could aid one side or the other on the political front,” The Associated Press reported. The Nashville judge ruled that the law was based on a “non-existent” order from Congress. 

The ruling comes ahead of an unprecedented November election that is expected to break records for the number of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic. The lawyers who challenged the law said it affected about 128,000 newly registered voters last election cycle.

“The Court concludes that the requested injunction would favorably impact the public interest because as discussed above, it would serve to prevent what, based on the current record, likely would be a violation of the First Amendment right to vote enjoyed by the American citizenry,” Richardson wrote, according to the AP.

The judge continued by saying Tennessee officials “offered nothing to show that Congress required or even intended that states impose a first-time voter restriction.” He defined the intent of Congress as “that first-time, mail-registered voters generally provide identification the first time they vote in the state of registration.”

One of the groups that launched the lawsuit, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement that with the ruling, the “court recognized that forcing voters to choose between voting and their health violates the Constitution.”

“This decision means that first-time voters in Tennessee who registered by mail or online — and there are tens of thousands of them, many of whom are young — can vote in November by mail, without risking their health,” Kristen Clarke, the committee’s president and executive director, said.

A state court ruled in June that all registered voters in the state can qualify for mail-in voting without an excuse for elections in 2020. Tennessee officials had claimed before the court that excuse-free voting would overwhelm the mail-in voting system. 

For the Aug. 6 primary, state officials enforced the first-time voter requirement after the June case’s federal judge said the previous lawsuit failed to address the mandate. 

The Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the expanded access to absentee voting last month, saying voters were permitted to submit mail-in ballots if they or someone in their care believe they are at higher risk for getting infected with COVID-19.