Feature photo by Hannah Ferreira
Story by Hannah Ferreira
For the past decade or so, Tennessee consistently scraped the bottom of the barrel when it came to voter registration and turnout.
In November 2022, the Volunteer State came in dead last – 51st – in the nation for voter turnout, according to ThinkTennessee. The Tennessee Secretary of State’s voter turnout statistical analysis said that only 38.61% of registered voters in the state cast their ballot that fall, compared to a national average of about 46%.
There are likely numerous reasons this could be. However, it likely isn’t a lack of confidence in the elections themselves, a common fear nationwide especially after the 2020 presidential election.
Tennessee has long prided itself on its election security. Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett wrote in an opinion column for the Tennessean that “it has never been easier for registered voters to cast a ballot in Tennessee, but it remains hard to cheat.”
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank based out of Washington, D.C., ranked Tennessee #1 in the nation for election integrity. That’s a far cry from 51st in voter turnout.
There’s a demonstrable disconnect between the systems in place for Tennesseeans to vote and the Tennesseeans who are voting. The answer may lie, in part, in the state’s Republican supermajority.
The Republican party holds majorities in the State House of Representatives and Senate, as well as occupying the offices of Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General. The supermajority in the House and Senate is so drastic that even if every single Democrat walked out of the State Capitol, the Republicans remaining would be able to meet quorum, as well as vote on and pass legislation.
As deeply entrenched as this majority seems now in Tennessee politics, it hasn’t always been this way.
The last time the Volunteer State elected a recent Democratic governor was in 2006, and it last held a Democratic majority in the House from 1971 to 2008.
While there’s likely no way to prove this swift switch to such an overwhelming majority resulted in a lower voter turnout in Tennessee compared to other states, it’s not difficult to imagine.
“The shift toward being a Republican stronghold has disheartened a lot of individuals, particularly political minorities,” said Katrina Aguilar, the president of the MTSU College Democrats.
Youth voter turnout is especially low in Tennessee, a group more likely to have liberal tendencies and, therefore, more likely to be demoralized by the red supermajority.
Tennessee’s youth voter turnout in 2022 was 12.7%, compared to a 23% national rate, according to the Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
This situation creates a positive feedback loop where demoralization results in lower voter turnout–which reinforces the elected officials already in office, ending predictably in even lower morale.
Aguilar said the likely reason for this large disparity is “a lack of civic education and overall apathy towards politics.” Additionally, she commented that “living in a Republican state may lead youth to think that their vote doesn’t matter.”
She recalled a time when she and several of her club members, along with hundreds of other community members, showed up at the Tennessee State Capitol to urge the General Assembly to pass stricter gun control laws in the wake of the Covenant School shooting. Aguilar said that the stubborn resistance they met from the opposition resulted in a “telling” moment for herself and others, indicative of “a lack of empathy and compassion that the supermajority had for the children and young adults–the future of the state.”
Moments like these, especially in the wake of such a tragedy, served to underscore to Tennesseeans what many already fear–that the supermajority isn’t going anywhere.
But Aguilar commented that not turning out to vote, not only for national elections but for midterms, state and local elections, leaves elected officials “complacent” in their position, therefore allowing them to drift further and further away from representing their constituents. They are much less likely to drift if their win is threatened, even by a smaller margin than usual.
Therefore, she doesn’t believe that “it’s fair to say that ‘my vote doesn’t matter’ when dealing with the Tennessee supermajority.”
Hannah Ferreira is a reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
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