Monday, April 25, 2016

Amendment 1 under review
Remember that vote back in 2014 on Amendment 1...which removed the right of an abortion from the Tennessee Constitution? The move has little effect in reality because the right to an abortion is guaranteed under the US Constitution as well. Eight voters in Tennessee challenged the way the votes on the amendment were counted and U.S. District Judge Kevin Sharp on Friday declared the method the state used to count votes "fundamentally unfair" and in violation of due process and equal protection rights for voters under the U.S. Constitution. The "no" votes of the eight plaintiffs "were not accorded the same weight" as those who voted in favor of the amendment, the judge concluded. The law says only those who voted in the last governors race may cast ballots on an amendment question, but state election officials took the raw number of votes instead of counting only those who voted in the governors race. The amendment was ratified by a 53 to 47 percent margin. As a remedy, the Court ordered a recount of the election results, but delayed ruling on the question of whether the election should be voided. The ruling orders state election officials to re-tabulate votes to count only those votes on Amendment 1 that were cast by voters who also voted in the governor's race. The judge gave election officials 20 days to submit a proposed recount timeline for the court's approval.


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