Democratic gun-control activist Shaundelle Brooks beat former Republican aide Chad Bobo in the race to fill a seat vacated by District 60 Rep. Darren Jernigan. With her win, Brooks saved the state’s already outnumbered Democrats from losing ground in the legislature. 

District 60, which represents the growing suburbs east of Nashville including Donelson, Hermitage and parts of Old Hickory, has been a consistently competitive district for more than a decade, with a near-even split between both major parties.

When Jernigan announced his departure, Brooks became a favorite to carry the torch. A former parole officer, Brooks became a gun-control advocate after her 23-year-old son Akilah Dasilva was killed in the 2018 Antioch Waffle House shooting. In August, she beat Donelson Hermitage Neighborhood Alliance President Tyler Brasher to win the party’s nomination. 

Tuesday, she led Bobo 55 percent to 45 percent, a difference of about 2,600 votes. 

“It was such a fight, oh my god,” an emotional Brooks said to a friend while waiting for final election results. 

Brooks joined about two dozen supporters at Homegrown Taproom in Donelson, and was greeted by cheers of “fight like a mom.” 

Propelled by the memory of her son, Brooks centered gun control in her campaign, which, she said, resonated with Nashville voters.

“They care about their families, they care about safety, they care about the real things,” Brooks told the Banner, noting that her door-knocking and conversations at the polls left her “confident in what the people want.”

Brooks spent the evening clutching a button with her son’s face on her chest while watching her race and watching early presidential election results. 

“I really hope she wins,” Brooks said, watching CNN discuss Kamala Harris’s chances in Pennsylvania. 

Brimming with anxiety, Brooks cried intermittently throughout the night, consoled by different friends. 

When Bobo conceded, Brooks put on a pin that said “Rep. Brooks for Akilah.” She thanked her supporters and said her son had called her “Rep. Brooks” in a vision.

“I hope he’s proud of me,” she said in her speech, which was interrupted by a call from Rep. Justin Jones. 

Jones welcomed Brooks to the “progressive caucus” and said she was the “highlight of Tennessee tonight.” 

Bobo campaigned on ideas like preserving the area as a “traditional American community” by limiting housing density, but offered few specific policy stances. While Bobo said he supports school choice, he declined to share his stance on the governor’s controversial school voucher proposal, which dominates current education policy discussions. 

“This has been, I would say, probably the hardest six to eight months. But I’ve had so much fun working with each of you,” Bobo told his supporters Tuesday night at the Old Hickory Country Club. “I think that this campaign, we gave all that we had and left it all out there, and the district chose differently. So, you know they’ll have to work with what they have.” 

Brooks took stronger stances on issues like restoring women’s rights to reproductive healthcare and expanding access to mental healthcare and gun control. 

Her win suggests that District 60 has followed other suburban Nashville neighborhoods, shifting further to the left amid population growth. In 2012, the last time the seat was open, Jernigan beat his Republican opponent by 95 votes, or less than half a percent. 

Braden Simmons contributed to this story.

The post Brooks Bests Bobo in Tennessee House 60, Keeps a Split District Blue appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Republican Rep. Mark Green will serve a fourth term in Congress after beating opponent Megan Barry.

Green, who initially said he would not seek reelection to Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, won Tuesday with about 60 percent of the vote from constituents in Clarksville and North Nashville. 

“I will fight tooth and nail to ensure every Tennessean has a chance at the American dream, without Washington getting in the way,” Green said in a statement Tuesday night after his win was announced.

Earlier this year, former President Donald Trump talked Green into seeking reelection to help maintain Republican control of the House. Since then, Green has spent nominal time campaigning in his district and has faced a very public adultery scandal, yielding criticism from constituents and his own family. 

Still, Green beat Barry, the former mayor of Nashville who left office in 2018 following her own cheating scandal. 

Barry campaigned aggressively on the ground, centering the opioid crisis and her son’s 2017 overdose death, but still fell short of Green by about 25 percent. 

She said Tuesday night that she was “absolutely” in the race to win but had also thought about how to “have wins along the way.” One such win, she said, was “getting our opponent to actually pay attention.”

“Before this year, Green had never run an attack ad on his opponent. He did multiple polls and apparently after that spent $400,000 on ads that tied me to Vice President Kamala Harris and he spelled my name right. So we felt like we were winning,” Barry said. “They can say now that they were never worried but I think their actions speak a whole lot louder than their words, and we held Mark Green’s feet to the fire.”

In his next term, Green is certain to remain a Trump ally and will continue to lean on his background as an Army flight surgeon to address healthcare and military policies. This election cycle Green has also emphasized the importance of the economy and immigration.

If Trump wins his much closer race, Green could be considered for a cabinet position, given the pair’s relationship. In 2017, Trump tried to appoint Green to be Army Secretary, but Green withdrew his nomination after backlash to his comments about the trans community.

Instead of campaigning in his own district this week, Green was featured on a bus tour of Pennsylvania, campaigning for Trump in the swing state.

The post Mark Green Retains U.S. House Seat appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Nashville voters on Tuesday decisively approved Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transportation improvement plan, a half-percent sales tax with revenues supporting a 15-year program of bus, sidewalk and traffic projects. 

The win means O’Connell has avoided the failures of the 2018 transit proposal that was soundly rejected by voters while also ensuring that his tenure in office is not derailed just one year into the job. His plan, crafted in the months after he was elected last year, was significantly smaller in scope than the 2018 effort, which included miles of expensive light rail construction and a higher price tag. O’Connell and his allies have spent the campaign season visiting community groups and neighborhood meetings to present their alliterative pitch for sidewalks, signals, service and safety. 

“After all these years we have secured dedicated funding for transportation and infrastructure,” O’Connell told a jubilant crowd. “There is so much good that we will be able to do for each other for the next 15 years. Tonight, I am extremely proud to be a Nashvillian with hundreds of thousands of Nashvillians who got this right.”

Campaign lead Jeff Morris echoed O’Connell as he thanked the campaign team and allied groups.

“This campaign is years in the making for this city,” he said. “I can’t be more grateful and thankful to every single person that came together to make this thing possible.”

Pro-transit volunteers camped out at polling places around the county on Tuesday.

“We’re voting ‘yes,’” one voter assured District 5 Metro Councilmember Sean Parker outside the Trinity Community Commons voting site, before her companion gave the referendum-supporting councilmember a high five. “You don’t have to tell us.”

District 1 Councilmember Joy Kimbrough, a vocal referendum opponent, was camped outside the Cathedral of Praise polling place.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the people I represent if I encouraged them to vote for this when we get the least, and we’re already an aggrieved community,” she told the Banner.

With a limited opposition — at least compared to 2018 — the low-key campaign was sufficient. 

O’Connell has been discussing the need for an improved transit system since well before his election as mayor last year. A former leader of the Metro Transit Authority and advocacy group Walk Bike Nashville, O’Connell frequently repeats his story of saving money to buy his house by selling his car and relying instead on the bus and a bike. He joined most other mayoral candidates in calling for a dedicated revenue stream for transit and hinted at a possible referendum in his inaugural address 13 months ago. 

“Today is the day we began building the transit system this city has needed for a long time,” he said. “We have big, bold plans and we might have to ask ourselves the question of whether we have the courage to pursue them.”

It soon became apparent that he would aim to ask Nashville voters to support transit on the November 2024 ballot, when some expected a higher presidential-year turnout to give a referendum a better chance of succeeding. By February, O’Connell had made it official, and two committees began meeting to shape the proposal he would bring to voters. 

O’Connell unveiled the full scope of his ask in April. He wanted to use a half-cent sales tax surcharge to pay for increased sidewalk construction, an expansion of the city’s bus network, a traffic signal modernization effort expected to reduce congestion and the construction of new transit centers and park-and-ride facilities around the county. The price tag was significantly smaller than what was proposed six years ago. The mayor and other supporters also touted the estimate that more than $1 billion in federal funds could come Nashville’s way if a dedicated transit funding stream were in place.  

Opposition was muted throughout the spring and summer, as groups on both the right and the left that opposed the 2018 proposal either offered their support or decided not to counter this effort. 

O’Connell and referendum supporters tallied a win earlier this year when no other question was successful in getting on the ballot. One community group sought to ask voters whether the city should prioritize housing over racing at The Fairgrounds Nashville, but they were blocked in court and were unable to gather signatures in time. Several proposed charter amendments were shot down by the Metro Council, leaving transit as the lone question requiring voters’ attention.

An organized opposition effort did eventually emerge, though it was meagerly funded. Former Metro Councilmember Emily Evans was among the leaders of the opposition campaign. She trekked to community and political meetings to spread her message: voters shouldn’t trust Metro to spend new tax money wisely. She also sought to tie the transit campaign to a suite of unrelated Metro Council zoning proposals and decried “empty buses.” Kimbrough also emerged as a spokesperson for the opposition as she stood outside the Bordeaux Library early voting site for several days, telling voters to oppose the referendum. 

“Any time I hear increased taxes, my radar goes off,” Kimbrough told the Banner outside the voting site in October. “I saw once again this area over here is kind of low on the totem pole. I was like, ‘no way.’”

One element of the program that remains unclear is the extent to which Metro can deploy dedicated bus lanes and other substantial transit infrastructure on state-controlled roads, including many of the busiest pikes in the city. Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Butch Eley told the Banner in June that it was too early to discuss specifics. TDOT and state legislative approval would be necessary for dedicated lanes on state routes, like Murfreesboro Road, home to WeGo’s busiest bus route and the key corridor to the airport.

“I’m always concerned that we are creating the most efficient, optimum use of our roads,” Eley said. “What I don’t want to see is things that slow down what we’re currently doing. I think transit is an important part of the overall solution.”

The post Nashville Transit Referendum Passes, Setting the Stage for Bus, Traffic Projects appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Incumbent Democrat Bo Mitchell beat Republican challenger and District 10 Metro Councilmember Jennifer Frensely Webb by 10 points to retain his seat as state house District 50 representative. 

“We’ve got most of the precincts in and right now we’re up by 11 percent, about three thousand votes. We don’t think there’s three thousand votes outstanding, so we win,” Mitchell said shortly after the early vote totals came out close to 8 p.m. 

“Now let’s sit here and pray for this,” Mitchell said, gesturing towards the the presidential race on the TV. 

Tensions were high in that race from the beginning, when Mitchell challenged Webb’s qualifying petition, which required 25 signatures to be valid. Webb acquired 31 signatures, but with the help of a handwriting expert, Mitchell challenged the validity of those signatures, and at a later hearing one of the signers admitted under oath to also signing his son’s name, which is a felony. 

While the Davidson County Election Commission allowed Webb’s candidacy to go forward, there is an ongoing legal dispute in Davidson County Chancery Court over the signatures.  

Aside from the legal challenges, Mitchell also outraised Webb, more than doubling her numbers with the backing of local PAC’s. Mitchell raised $95,617 and spent $25,100 in the third quarter of the year, with just over $70,000 coming from PACs. Webb raised $42,813 and spent $16,554, with only $1,000 coming from PACs. 

Mitchell’s election night party at Tailgate Brewery was nervy, but not for his race. Dozens of Mitchell supporters donned in Kamala Harris gear were confident that early voting numbers would seal the deal long before they came out, and had already moved on to focusing on the presidential race.

But over at Plaza Mexican Grill, a small gathering of Webb supporters — mostly her family — were nervous from the outset. 

“If early voting ain’t equal, then I’m going to lose,” Webb said before the early vote was announced. Over the next hour, she and her son repeatedly brought out a pen and paper to jot down results from campaign workers long before any results had come out. When early voting was announced, the energy left the room. 

Webb and Mitchell, who waged a contentious race, did not exchange any phone calls. 

“I didn’t get dirty like he did with all the lies,” Webb told supporters. “I stayed true to who I was. We’ll be back. Now people know my name. People are going to have to come up with a pretty strong Democrat.”

Here’s a look at some of the other key local races. 

House District 52

In District 52, Democratic incumbent Rep. Justin Jones beat Republican Challenger Laura Nelson as expected.

In a heavily blue district, Jones gained national attention following his short-lived expulsion from the Tennessee House in 2023. During that time he raised more than a million dollars. He managed to win this race while barely spending any of that money, and is still sitting on nearly a million dollars. 

Jones spent much of the week in the Midwest on the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris.

House District 53

In District 53, Democratic incumbent Rep. Jason Powell beat Republican challenger Yog Nepal to maintain his seat. Powell has represented the heavily blue district since 2012. Ruben Dockery ran as an independent.

House District 51

In District 51, Democratic incumbent Aftyn Behn defeated independent Jeff Ketelsen. Behn had 77 percent of the vote with 61 percent of votes counted.

Unopposed

In House Districts 54, 55, 56, 58 and 59, Democrats Vincent Dixie, John Ray Clemmons, Bob Freeman, Harold M. Love Jr., and Caleb Hemmer each respectively won their elections unopposed. 

Senate

In the only local state Senate race, District 20 Democratic incumbent Heidi Campbell beat Republican Challenger Wyatt Rampy by 58.8 percent 41.2 percent with 60 percent of the vote counted. Campbell has held the seat since 2020, when she flipped the district from red to blue with a victory over Steve Dickerson.

Ty Wellemeyer contributed to this report.

The post Mitchell Defeats Webb for District 50 House Seat appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn will serve another term representing Tennesseans at the federal level after staving off a challenge from State Rep. Gloria Johnson. 

Blackburn was expected to win given the state’s recent history of electing only Republicans to federal office.

“Tonight’s victory belongs to the people of Tennessee,” Blackburn said. “You have been heard.”

Blackburn campaigned on aggression toward China and promises to crack down on immigration and big tech. 

Johnson, a Democrat representing part of Knoxville in the Tennessee General Assembly, gained name recognition last year as a member of the so-called “Tennessee Three,” Democratic representatives who faced expulsion after protesting for gun control in the wake of the Covenant School shooting. 

Despite the national attention the Tennessee Three attracted, Johnson’s long shot campaign remained just that, failing to break the state’s trend toward Republicans.

No Tennessee Democrat has been elected to the Senate since Al Gore in 1990. 

Trump-backed Republican Blackburn became Tennessee’s first female senator in 2018 after beating former Governor Phil Bredesen 55 percent to 44 percent. 

“Six years ago, Tennesseans elected me as the first woman senator to serve the Volunteer State,” Blackburn said, “and I am humbled that they have chosen to reelect me to continue representing their conservative values in the U.S. Senate.”

In her new term, Blackburn is expected to center on international relations issues like security at the U.S.-Mexico border, limiting interactions with China and supporting U.S. aid to Israel. She’s also recently focused on technological policies like regulating social media companies and championing the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The post Blackburn Beats Johnson, Holds U.S. Senate Seat appeared first on Nashville Banner.

U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, the Maury County Republican who represents parts of southern Davidson County in the 5th Congressional District, won reelection Tuesday over Democratic challenger Maryam Abolfazli. 

Ogles did relatively little fundraising or campaigning since winning his primary in August, and Abolfazli was not shy about calling attention to the ongoing federal investigation into the incumbent’s finances. (Ogles himself was shy, as both he and his aides did not respond to multiple interview requests over the course of months.) But that was not enough to overcome the electoral makeup of the formerly Democratic district, reconstituted as part of state Republicans’ 2022 effort to split Nashville’s Democratic voters into three congressional districts. 

Ogles, a former anti-tax lobbyist with Americans for Prosperity, first won elected office as Maury County mayor in 2018. In 2022, he emerged from a contentious Republican primary to represent the newly GOP-friendly 5th Congressional District after beating Democratic nominee Heidi Campbell in the general election. 

His two years in office have been eventful, as he joined with rogue Republicans in opposing the speakership of GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, helping thrust Congress into chaos early in 2023. A series of revelations about Ogles’ exaggerated and inaccurate resume followed, as did mounting questions about his personal and campaign finances. When a shooting at the Covenant School in his district left young students and staff members dead last year, Ogles attracted further attention for a 2021 Christmas card showing his family holding assault weapons. 

That negative attention led multiple Republicans to consider taking on Ogles in the GOP primary. Ultimately, Nashville Metro Councilmember Courtney Johnston was the lone challenger on the August primary ballot. During an abbreviated campaign, she attracted the support of prominent Tennessee Republicans, including former Gov. Bill Haslam and Sen. Bob Corker, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of that going to attack Ogles for his leadership and scandals. (An outside group chipped in even more for attacks on Ogles.) 

But in August, Ogles beat Johnston by 13 percentage points. She later told the Banner that the apparent assassination attempt on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who had endorsed Ogles, changed the calculus of the local race and pushed victory out of reach. Despite spending months and hundreds of thousands of dollars critiquing Ogles, she also told the Banner that she supported his reelection. 

“We have a really slim margin in the House, and we don’t control the Senate at all, so I think it’s important to hold that seat,” she said, calling Abolfazli “too extreme for me.”

One day after Ogles’ primary victory, the FBI seized his cell phone as part of a campaign finance inquiry. Ogles has since been fighting to prevent federal law enforcement from reviewing its contents, arguing that it includes privileged legislative material. So far this year, he has acknowledged claiming to have $300,000 in 2022 campaign funds that were never in a campaign account and failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal assets on required disclosures. 

A graduate of Nashville’s Hume-Fogg High School and the child of Iranian immigrants, Abolfazli worked in international development and the private sector before engaging more publicly in local politics in the wake of the Covenant shooting. She advocated for gun safety and reproductive rights but told the Banner in September that one of her main goals during the campaign was to bridge the gap with more conservative voters, including those in the parts of the district outside Nashville (including part or all of Williamson, Wilson, Maury, Lewis and Marshall counties). 

“One of the biggest things we’re doing is bridging the divides that have existed for way too long in this district,” she told a group of volunteers preparing to canvass with her on an August day in Antioch. “When I talk to folks, they are so consumed with misinformation about us.  You are in the process of democracy. You are in the process of making change. This is it. It’s like going to the gym — it should feel amazing in a couple of hours.”

Abolfazli never attracted the financial resources enjoyed by well-known Democrats Megan Barry (running in the 7th Congressional District) and Gloria Johnson (running for U.S. Senate), but she hoped to turn out Nashville Democrats while engaging Ogles-skeptic moderate voters around the district.

The post Andy Ogles Turns Away Democratic Challenge in Tennessee’s 5th District appeared first on Nashville Banner.

The post Nashville Election Day Live Updates, Nov. 5, 2024 appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Today is Election Day. 

The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. All voters who are in line at 7 p.m. will be able to vote, so be sure to stay in line. Voters do not need to have their voter registration card but should have a federal or state photo ID.

Shortly after the polls close, the Davidson County Election Commission will post early voting and absentee ballot results. From there, precinct data will be released throughout the night as the ballots are counted. But while local election results will largely be available later tonight, don’t be surprised if the presidential election results take a few days to be finalized. 

Here’s some other helpful information to make navigating election day a little easier. 

Where do I vote?

Voters can go to the Davidson County polling place finder website to find their assigned polling place. Some polling places have changed since 2020, so double-check your precinct, especially if you did not vote in August or local elections last year. Be sure to check and make sure you receive the correct ballot once you have checked in to vote. You can see a Davidson County sample ballot here, or use Ballotpedia’s sample ballot lookup tool for a more exact sample of what your ballot will have on it. 

How do I get there?

WeGo will be offering free bus rides all day on Election Day. Whether riders are using the bus to get to work, school or the polls, they can just hop on the bus and go without having to pay a fare for all rides within Davidson County. Riders can find a full schedule with routes here.

Still trying to decide?

Check out the Nashville Banner’s 2024 voter’s guide, where we have coverage of the issues that matter most to our readers based on a community survey, interviews and details on all the candidates, and dozens of stories covering the lead-up to the election. 

Some of our most recent stories include coverage of Davidson County’s early voting numbers, which ended slightly behind the 2020 election cycle and coverage of fundraising in the race for Senate between Democrat Gloria Johnson and incumbent Marsha Blackburn. Voters will also find expansive coverage of Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit referendum, which voters can either vote for or against. 

Where should I look for results?

You’ve come to the right place. The Banner has a live blog starting when the polls open at 7 a.m. that we will be updating throughout the day with anything voters may need to know. Additionally, this evening we will have reporters out at various election parties covering candidates’ first reactions to the results. 

Live election results can be found on our website here beginning at 7 p.m.

The post From Poll Locations to Candidate Guides, Here is Everything You Will Need for Election Day appeared first on Nashville Banner.

UPDATE, Tuesday, 2 p.m.: The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has told a handful of Middle Tennessee voters that they can cast provisional ballots in today’s election amid uncertainty of their eligibility because of a change in how the state views felony rights restoration.

The state has still not confirmed whether the voters will be registered or ballots will be counted, but did say the individuals could cast provisional ballots without risking voter fraud charges.

“I spoke with other lawyers and my clients and they decided to cast provisional ballots,” attorney Keeda Haynes said Tuesday. “They are all so excited to be able to vote.”

Original story: Election Day is a day of choices for all, but for a handful of prospective voters in Middle Tennessee, the decision is whether to cast a ballot and risk arrest or forfeit their chance to vote. 

On Monday, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Angelita Blackshear Dalton denied the state’s challenge to her September order, which restored the full rights of citizenship to four locals with past felony convictions, despite their ineligibility to own firearms. 

The four voters are among the first to try and restore their rights to vote since Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins, interpreted a 2023 Supreme Court decision to mean that someone must receive a complete restoration of rights or a pardon to have their rights restored after a felony. 

That decision complicated the logistics of restoration, requiring the process to go through a court. It also raised an eligibility question for those who meet the legal requirements for restoration but are not eligible to possess a weapon due to the nature of their conviction. 

According to Dalton, Goins’s interpretation conflicts with the actual laws on the books and the firearm requirement should not hinder someone from voting. 

“The Court is particularly concerned about the Attorney General’s repeated mischaracterization of the Office of the District Attorney General’s recently expressed stance that full restoration should be granted to the four Petitioners despite their permanent firearms prohibitions,” the newest order reads. 

Absent a stay, which had not been sought or granted by the end of the day Monday, the order stands through Election Day.

But still, it is unclear whether they can or will cast ballots in today’s election. 

Like most states, Tennessee accepts provisional ballots from voters who are unable to verify their eligibility on Election Day. Those ballots are later counted if the voter is confirmed to be eligible.

Keeda Haynes, an attorney for Free Hearts representing the four hopeful voters in Dalton’s order, said her clients are hesitant to cast any ballot before having their rights restored explicitly by the state, out of fear of prosecution. 

“My clients are uncomfortable voting provisionally with the uptick in prosecutions of directly impacted people being charged with illegally voting. It’s not a chance they want to take,” Haynes said, referencing a recent emphasis on prosecuting voter fraud from Tennessee.

Concerns about fraudulent voting from undocumented immigrants, deceased voters and other groups have proliferated in recent years, especially among conservatives following former President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. 

In reality, voter fraud charges and convictions are rare and statistically insignificant to election results.

Still, Tennessee’s state government has increased its warnings to voters about the consequences of voter fraud, including sending foreboding letters to 14,000 “potential non-citizens” this summer, reminding them that it is a felony offense to vote illegally.

This narrative can have a chilling effect on would-be voters, including those awaiting approval from the state following Dalton’s order.

“So even though they did everything that the elections division asked and submitted everything before the registration deadline, they still will not be able to vote (Tuesday),”  Haynes said. 

The Secretary of State’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the order late Monday. 

In an earlier statement, spokesperson Doug Kufner did not clarify whether the individuals could cast provisional ballots, but explained the timeline of such ballots.  

“Provisional ballots must be resolved by Nov. 12 unless an extension is granted,” Kufner said. “The state coordinator of elections can grant extensions to county election commissions regarding the counting of provisional ballots if ballot counting can’t be completed by Nov. 12. However, no extension can be granted past Nov. 25.”

Amanda Hopkins, who had a felony drug conviction over a decade ago, would have been able to restore her rights under the previous interpretation of the law but has now been through a months-long legal process only to be left in a sort of democratic purgatory. 

On Election Day, Hopkins is debating whether to “give up” and not participate or to cast a provisional ballot, risking further criminal charges. 

“I don’t wanna go to jail. If I did, I would still be in the streets committing crimes,” Hopkins said Monday. “But do I just give up and say, ‘OK, they won, I won’t vote?’”

Hopkins said she would likely follow Haynes’ advice on voting based on whether the state would respond before the polls close on Tuesday. If she doesn’t vote, she says she will continue to fight the case in court to hopefully vote in the next election cycle and “show [Goins] he can’t scare people away from voting,” which she believes was his intent. 

Over the last four weeks, the Attorney General’s Office has ignored repeated questions from the Banner about this case and about the number of ongoing cases in which the state is pushing back on someone’s restoration.

The Secretary of State’s office referred the question to the Attorney General’s office, but said there are “not many” such cases. 

Haynes is aware of about 11 cases locally.  

Hopkins hopes this year’s setback helps influence reform before the next election. 

“I just hope that when everything is said and done, I will be restored to citizenship rights, and anyone that comes along on this path behind me will never have to experience what I’ve been through,” Hopkins said. “It makes me feel like I’m just a felon, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

The post Some Tennessee Voters Still Unsure of Voting Rights on Election Day appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Live results begin at 7 p.m. on Nov. 5.

The post 2024 General Election Live Results appeared first on Nashville Banner.