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The Tennessee Conservative [By Adelia Kirchner] –
The bill filing deadline for Tennessee’s 2025 legislative session was Thursday, Feb. 6th and two new election integrity bills were filed just in time.
House Bill 1159 (HB1159)/Senate Bill 831 (SB0831), sponsored by Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mount Juliet-District 57) and Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald-District 28), would require voters to select an official political party affiliation.
As introduced, HB1159/SB0831 requires voters to “designate on the voter registration record a political party with which the voter is affiliated in order to vote in primary elections for such political party.”
According to the bill text, at the time of registration each voter must designate a political party affiliation for themselves or they may choose to be “unaffiliated.”
For the purposes of this legislation, an “unaffiliated voter” is a voter who is not affiliated with “a statewide political party of recognized minor political party and who has no political party preference.”
If a voter fails or refuses to make a party designation, the county election commission would be required to register that voter as “unaffiliated.”
Another election integrity bill, House Bill 999 (HB0999)/Senate Bill 1028 (SB1028), is being sponsored by Rep. Todd Warner (R-Chapel Hill-District 92) and Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma-District 16).
The legislation is written to reflect Georgia’s HB974 which went into effect last summer.
As introduced, HB0999/SB1028 would require all of Tennessee’s election ballots to have a secure watermark, “easily discernible for verification purposes.”
It would also require the official tabulation count of a ballot scanner to be “based on the text or machine mark portion of a ballot” and creates programs for the scanning and auditing of ballots.
About the Author: Adelia Kirchner is a Tennessee resident and reporter for the Tennessee Conservative. Currently the host of Subtle Rampage Podcast, she has also worked for the South Dakota State Legislature and interned for Senator Bill Hagerty’s Office in Nashville, Tennessee. Adelia is The Tennessee Conservative’s on-site reporter for the Tennessee General Assembly. You can reach Adelia at adelia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
