TENNESSEE CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, on behalf of itself and its members v. WILLIAM BYRON LEE, et al., MARK GOINS, in his official capacity as Coordinator of Elections for the State of Tennessee; TRE HARGETT, in his official capacity as Secretary of the State of Tennessee - Articles

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TENNESSEE CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE, on behalf of itself and its members v. WILLIAM BYRON LEE, et al., MARK GOINS, in his official capacity as Coordinator of Elections for the State of Tennessee; TRE HARGETT, in his official capacity as Secretary of the State of Tennessee

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Jun 5, 2025

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ARGUED: Philip Hammersley, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellants.

Attorneys 2: ARGUED: Danielle M. Lang, CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.

Attorneys 3: ON BRIEF: Philip Hammersley, Zachary Barker, Dawn Jordan, J. Matthew Rice, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellants.

Attorneys 4: ON BRIEF: Danielle M. Lang, Blair S. Bowie, Alice C.C. Huling, Kathryn Huddleston, Valencia Richardson, Ellen Boettcher, Kate Uyeda, CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER, Washington, D.C., Charles K. Grant, Denmark J. Grant, BAKER, DONELSON, BEARMAN, CALDWELL & BERKOWITZ, PC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Judge(s): BUSH, LARSEN, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville

MURPHY, Circuit Judge. Tennessee grants the right to vote only to some convicted criminals. When processing voter-registration forms, then, state officials must distinguish between eligible and ineligible felons. To do so, the officials have required some felon applicants to include additional records with their registration forms that confirm their eligibility. The Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP asserts that this “Documentation Policy” violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The district court agreed and facially enjoined the policy. Yet the NAACP failed to establish its Article III standing to sue. The Documentation Policy does not directly regulate the NAACP. And although the NAACP generally alleges that the policy has led it to spend resources to help eligible felons register to vote, the organization did not introduce any specific facts showing that the policy threatened an imminent injury. Indeed, the NAACP did not identify a single voter that it has helped or planned to help. We thus reverse.

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