Criminal Procedure

Plain English Breakdown

The bill summary and digest do not provide information on how many individuals will be affected.

Voting Rights Restoration Act

This bill allows people who owe child support to vote if they agree to pay back what they owe over time, but their voting rights can be taken away again if they don't follow the payment plan.

What This Bill Does

• Changes Tennessee law so that people who have not paid all of their child support can still apply for a voter registration card and get their right to vote back if they agree to pay it off over time.
• Requires courts to give people help from a lawyer before taking away their voting rights again if they don't follow the payment plan.

Who It Names or Affects

• People who owe child support and want to vote
• Courts that handle voting rights cases

Terms To Know

affidavit of indigency

A written statement signed by a person saying they are poor or cannot afford to pay their debts.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what happens if someone follows the payment plan but still can't fully repay all child support.
• It is unclear how many people this change will affect in Tennessee.

Official Summary Text

Present law provides that
a person is not eligible to apply for a voter registration card and have the right of suffrage restored unless the person is current in all child support obligations.
Th
is bill revises this provision to, instead, provide that a person is
eligible to apply for a voter registration card and have the right of suffrage provisionally restored if the person enters into a payment plan to become current in all unpaid child suppor
t obligations.
However, if the person willfully fails
to adhere to the terms of
the
payment plan, then the court that provisionally restored the person's right of suffrage
must
revoke the person's provisional right of suffrage. Prior to revoking a person
's provisional right of suffrage, the court
must
provide the person with court-appointed counsel and offer the person the opportunity to be heard and to submit proof of the person's financial inability to pay, which may include a signed affidavit of indige
ncy.

Current Bill Text

SENATE BILL 1119
By Lamar

HOUSE BILL 1053
By McKenzie

HB1053
001346
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AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 40,
Chapter 29, relative to voting rights.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 40-29-202, is amended by deleting
subsection (c) and substituting:
(c)
(1) Notwithstanding subsection (a), a person is not eligible to apply for a
voter registration card and have the right of suffrage restored unless the person
is current in all child support obligations.
(2) Notwithstanding subdivision (c)(1), a person is eligible to apply for a
voter registration card and have the right of suffrage provisionally restored if the
person enters into a payment plan to become current in all unpaid child support
obligations.
(3) If a person willfully fails to adhere to the terms of a payment plan
entered into pursuant to subdivision (c)(2), then the court that provisionally
restored the person's right of suffrage shall revoke the person's provisional right
of suffrage. Prior to revoking a person's provisional right of suffrage, the court
shall provide the person with court-appointed counsel and offer the person the
opportunity to be heard and to submit proof of the person's financial inability to
pay, which may include a signed affidavit of indigency.
SECTION 2. The secretary of state, in consultation with the department of human
services and the administrative office of the courts, is authorized to promulgate rules to

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effectuate the purposes of this act. The rules must be promulgated in accordance with the
Uniform Administrative Procedures Act, compiled in Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4,
Chapter 5.
SECTION 3. This act takes effect July 1, 2025, the public welfare requiring it, and
applies to persons applying for a voter registration card on or after that date.