[EL] Tennessee election law contretemps

[Edelman, Paul]

  The provision of the Tennessee constitution that specifies how to pass an amendment requires  voters must "approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor, voting in their favor." This has always been interpreted to mean that the number of votes to pass an amendment must exceed both the number of votes against AND be more than half of the number of votes cast in the governor's race.  Of course, on plain reading, the wording would seem to say that the requirement is that it requires the majority of the votes of people who vote BOTH for governor AND the amendment.  A law suit challenging the former interpretation has been filed in federal court.  See  http://dockets.justia.com/docket/tennessee/tnmdce/3:2014cv02182/61699
  My question for the list is whether the second interpretation, tying the counting of one's vote in the amendment race to participation in the governor's race, would be a constitutional violation, either under a "forced speech" analysis or some other unconstitutional condition analysis.  Are there any cases really on point here?



Paul H. Edelman
Professor of Mathematics and Law
615-322-0990

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20141113/56423b1b/attachment.html>