(C) Tennessee Lookout
This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout and is unaltered.
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Few cases of alleged voter fraud are prosecuted in Tennessee – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['Kathy Carlson', 'More From Author', '- December']
Date: 2023-12-19
Even as 11 people in Montgomery County are being prosecuted under a state law against illegal registration and voting, court data show fewer than 100 prosecutions statewide under the same law over the past five fiscal years.
The information comes from Tennessee’s Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), which provides support to the state court system.
The AOC reports annually on civil and criminal proceedings in trial and appellate courts, gathering data on cases filed or resolved in the courts during a fiscal year. For the past five completed fiscal years, from 2018-19 through 2022-23, 81 prosecutions were reported under the illegal voting and registration statute, along with 81 dispositions or resolutions. The filings and dispositions aren’t necessarily the same cases because a case that’s filed in one year may be resolved or disposed of in a different year.
The Tennessee statute, TCA 2-19-107, is titled “Illegal registration or voting.” It makes it a Class D felony if a person “intentionally and knowing that such person is not entitled to, registers or votes … or attempts to register or vote” when the person isn’t entitled to. Punishment can include 2-10 years imprisonment and a fine. Once convicted, a person permanently loses the right to vote in Tennessee.
Prosecutions reported by the AOC were scattered among 14 of the state’s 32 prosecutors’ offices, alleging violations in 19 of 95 counties.
That is a high mens rea or criminal intent requirement for a good reason, because registering to vote and voting are fundamental rights quintessential to our democracy. We wouldn’t want to chill participation. – Eliza Sweren-Becker, Brennan Center for Justice
The number of prosecutions, or filings, may not necessarily equal the number of people prosecuted. Attempts to clarify the data and find out how many people have been prosecuted were unsuccessful.
Of the 81 dispositions, 41 or about half were either dismissed or the prosecutor decided not to pursue the case. Twenty-seven dispositions involved pleas of guilty as charged, three were pleas of guilty to a lesser charge and three involved placements in diversion programs. Seven dispositions involved charges that were retired or defendants who couldn’t be apprehended.
The prosecutions are taking place at a time when the integrity of the nation’s voting and election systems has come under intense scrutiny and attack.
Eliza Sweren-Becker is senior counsel in the Voting Rights & Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute in New York. “Every state prohibits voter fraud, (such as) registering knowing you’re ineligible,” she said.
As Sweren-Becker understands the Tennessee statute, people “are only criminally liable if they actually knew they were ineligible when they registered and when they voted.” There must be “specific intent to register knowing they are ineligible.”
“That is a high mens rea or criminal intent requirement for a good reason, because registering to vote and voting are fundamental rights quintessential to our democracy. We wouldn’t want to chill participation,” Sweren-Becker said. “… We don’t want to penalize an honest mistake.”
Generally, prosecutors have complete discretion to decide whether to prosecute, even in cases where a victim doesn’t want to have a defendant charged, said Christopher Slobogin, who holds the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, where he also is director of its criminal justice program.
For persons to be found guilty under the Tennessee statute, the prosecutor must show beyond a reasonable doubt that they knew they were not entitled to vote, Slobogin continued.
In some voter fraud cases, defendants have said they didn’t know they couldn’t vote, he said. Prosecutors don’t have to take defendants at their word, nor do they have to assume defendants are lying.
Prosecutors can reach different decisions on whether to prosecute under the same fact situations, Slobogin said. The main check on those decisions rests in the ballot box, the ability of voters to vote prosecutors out of office.
Most studies have found that “in reality there are very, very few instances of voter fraud,” Sweren-Becker said. The low possibility of voter fraud “should not be the basis for policies that make it harder” for people to vote, policies she likened to “hammers in search of a nail” of fraud.
For example, having voting rights restored after being convicted of a felony, particularly in Tennessee, is confusing, she said. It’s difficult to understand what the rules are and how a person gets rights restored, she said, and it shouldn’t be a crime to be confused or for misunderstandings to arise about highly complex rules.
“Elections in this country are (conducted) with a great deal of integrity. There are a lot of protections in election codes,” Sweren-Becker said. “The real risk of voter fraud is infinitesimal.”
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[1] Url:
https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/12/19/prosecution-of-alleged-voter-fraud-cases-in-tennessee-rare/
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