The third election of 2022 in Memphis is the one that finishes races started with the August primaries and answers some questions

In addition to a statewide race for Tennessee governor and general election races for the Tennessee Legislature, Memphis voters — starting with the Wednesday, Oct. 19 opening of early voting — will also be voting on a set of four proposed amendments to the Tennessee Constitution and making a choice before they even approach the ballot.

At several churches in the city and across the state, Sunday, Oct. 16, worship services marked “Emancipation Sunday.”

Proposed amendment would ban slavery as punishment for a crime

The African-American Clergy Collective of Tennessee coordinated the call for support of the proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution on the Nov. 8 ballot that would remove the last vestiges of slavery from the document — specifically the exception to a ban on slavery for those convicted of a crime.

Among the congregations observing Emancipation Sunday was Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, whose pastor, J. Lawrence Turner, is leader of the AACCT.

“Y’all, it’s long overdue that this line in the constitution is taken out,” Turner said via a video played during Sunday services.

The amendment is one of four to the Tennessee Constitution on the November ballot.

In order to become part of the Constitution, each much pass with a simple majority — 50% plus one — of the total number of votes cast statewide in the general election race for Tennessee Governor.

Towns trying to remove slavery from state Constitution

The state constitution currently reads “that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are forever prohibited in this state.”

The amendment would delete that and add the following: “Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”

The amendment is supported by a bipartisan group of state legislators and other local elected officials.

There is no organized opposition to the slavery amendment that was also approved by the Tennessee Legislature twice in order to get on the ballot statewide.

Former Republican state Senator Brian Kelsey of Germantown voted against the amendment as it cleared the final hurdle last year to get on the ballot.

Kelsey, who resigned earlier this year following his indictment on federal campaign finance charges and who is awaiting trial on the charges, called the amendment “fake history” that didn’t need to be corrected because slavery was already banned.

Understanding Tennessee’s proposed ‘right to work’ constitutional amendment

Democratic state Senator Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, the Senate sponsor of the amendment, said the current wording leaves a real exception to the ban on slavery.

She argues the language should be corrected given the state’s history of chain gangs and other forced labor for state prisoners and the role that labor played in the state’s economy.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan coalition that takes in the Conservative Women of Collierville organization and Democratic District Attorney Steve Mulroy is pushing for voters to choose hand-marked paper ballots whether they vote early or on election day.

The election marks a change in the county’s voting system from touchscreen machines without any kind of paper trail to updated touchscreens that produce a paper read out of a voter’s choices that the voter then checks and feeds into a digital scanner and then into a ballot box.

New voting machines prepped for start of early voting

Voters at the outset of the voting process will be asked whether they want to vote on that system or whether they would prefer to vote with a paper ballot they mark by hand — filling in a bubble on the form — and then run through the same scanner and the same ballot box when they are finished.

“We are not accusing anybody of anything,” former state Representative Mike Kernell said Saturday, Oct. 15, at a press conference outside the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library by the coalition of groups.

Kernell is with the group Shelby Advocates for Valid Elections — or SAVE — which has contested past local elections.

Despite that, most of those speaking in favor of hand-marked paper ballots said they believe hand-marked paper ballots are more reliable than votes cast on voting machines.

New voting machines prepped for start of early voting

Mitchell Morrison, of the conservative group Take Back Tennessee, works in the grocery business and says through that experience he has seen first hand how bar codes used on the readouts from the touchscreen machines can become mixed up.

“I’m all too familiar with bar codes,” he said. “They don’t necessarily have to depend on that bar code. They can use their own hand and use paper that can be checked later without having to rely on potential human error on bar codes.”

Shelby County Elections Administrator Linda Phillips has said the bar codes on the read outs will be next to the names of the candidates selected.

Election Commission offers demonstrations of new voting system

Take Back Tennessee’s Facebook page links to a post that urges voters to never vote by mail, presumably including absentee, or vote early.

“The more mailed ballots we allow, the more potential for fraud there will be,” it reads.

Another post is a meme showing a boy and a man chopping wood outside a log cabin. The caption says, “Teach your boys to be men before their teachers teach them to be women.”

Mulroy, who has long championed hand-marked paper ballots over machines, said he will be watching how election workers handle the part of the process that offers voters a choice.

“The greater the percentage of paper ballots out of the total numbers of ballots cast, the more secure and legitimate an audit we can do and the more confident we can be in the integrity of the election,” he said.

Mulroy said hand-marked paper ballots can increase voter confidence in local elections that he says has been damaged by problems in recent elections.

He includes the decision in the August elections not to run tapes with vote tallies from each individual voting machine at precincts and post that at the precincts election night.

“What we can do to restore that public trust is use hand-marked paper ballots as much as possible,” he said. “To the election commission — please make sure that every voter is given the explicit choice to have a hand-marked paper ballot.”

“Do not steer them towards the machines just because it’s easy and that’s what you are used to,” Mulroy said. “Make sure every voter is informed they can choose a hand-marked paper ballot.”