(NewsNation) — More than 14,000 people on Tennessee’s voter rolls were sent letters earlier this year asking them to prove they’re U.S. citizens, prompting complaints from immigrant communities and Democratic lawmakers.
“Our office has received information that appears to indicate that your voter information matches with an individual who may not have been a United States citizen at the time of obtaining a Tennessee driver license or ID card,” read the letter from Mark Goins, Tennessee state coordinator of elections.
The letter asked recipients to mail back a copy of a document proving citizenship: birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate. But the letter did not say whether those who failed to respond would be purged from the state’s voter rolls.
“It is clearly intended to intimidate people into taking themselves off the rolls,” said Blair Bowie, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center. The center was one of several groups that have expressed concerns about the mailing.
“I think that this is a classic example of targeting a constitutional classification of individuals to discourage them from exercising their constitutional right to vote,” Jeff Preptit, a staff attorney with the Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Guardian.
“Everything in the letter reeks of voter intimidation,” Charles Lieou wrote in a letter to The Tennessean. “The onus would be on me to prove it once again, almost as if I were an indicted criminal. This is utterly ridiculous,” he added.
In a letter to state lawmakers late last month, Goins said the list of voters flagged was based on a “snapshot” of noncitizens in the state’s driver’s license database. He also acknowledged that there might be people on the list who were noncitizens when they got their driver’s license but have since become naturalized citizens.
Goins also said it’s unlikely that anyone would be stricken from the voter rolls before the November election. Tennessee’s primary for state and local elective offices is Aug. 1.