Report: Rural TN counties have most room for voter turnout, registration growth

(Photo: Mario Tamo/Getty Images)

Voter registration and turnout in Tennessee lags behind most other states in the nation, but a new report from a Tennessee think tank found that rural counties in particular have the most room for growth.

Rural counties along the West-Middle Tennessee Grand Division line and in the northeast have the lowest average turnout rates over the past three presidential elections, according to a report released Monday by nonpartisan ThinkTennessee.

While nearly half of Tennessee’s 95 counties had a voter registration rate above the national average of 84.4% in 2023, eight rural counties showed fewer than 75% of their estimated eligible voters were registered to vote.

Lower registration and turnout rates mean less representation at the ballot box.

Dawn Schluckebier, the lead author of the report, said ThinkTennessee wanted to “take a deeper dive” into data to see where Tennesseans are or aren’t registering to vote and making it to the polls to better direct efforts to encourage voting.

In 2020, Tennessee ranked 41st among the 50 states and Washington D.C. in voter registration, and 47th in voter turnout for the presidential election. And 2020 was an outlier year for Tennessee — the state saw a record turnout of registered voters that year, but it wasn’t enough to top better registration and turnout rates in neighboring states. Kentucky ranked 23rd in registration and 35th in turnout in 2020, and Alabama was 21st in registration and 42nd in turnout.

How Tennessee’s counties stack up

Williamson County, the wealthiest county in the state, saw the highest average turnout rate at 74.2%, and the highest voter registration rate at 107.3%. Schluckebier said rates over 100% can appear due to timing issues with voter roll audits and limitations with using census data to estimate the citizen voting age population for each county.

Hancock, Clay, Scott, Campbell, Lake and Perry counties averaged less than 55% voter turnout. Some rural counties like Polk, Clay and Sevier have registration rates over 88%, but saw fewer than 60% of those voters show up at the polls.

The five counties with the lowest voter registration rates include Weakley (70.3%), Morgan (68.2%), Lauderdale (67.5%), Trousdale (66.4%) and Lake (56.9%). Lake County is considered a distressed county by the state, with the second-highest poverty rate in Tennessee at 27.9%.

There is also room for improvement around Tennessee’s largest cities, though these large counties tend to have higher voter registration rates. As of 2023, Davidson, Shelby, Knox and Hamilton counties were home to an estimated 156,000 unregistered residents, and all four counties failed to see a turnout average above 65%.

“You hear about how Tennessee stacks up nationally in comparison to other states, but if you are a voter or resident would-be voter in one of those counties and you see that your region (or) your county isn’t as well represented as others, that could spark an interest to ask the question ‘why?’ and kind of motivate and activate some of that engagement,” Schluckebier said Tuesday.

Where the numbers come from

ThinkTennessee averaged voter turnout data for each county from the last three presidential election cycles in 2012, 2016 and 2020. Presidential elections tend to see higher turnout than midterm and local elections, and using these data sets will allow an apples-to-apples comparison to turnout rates this November, Schluckebier said.

Registration rate estimates for each county were calculated using Census population estimates and voter registration totals. They estimated the number of residents eligible to vote using citizenship and age data.

There are some limitations: discrepancies in voter roll maintenance (when election officials update the rolls and remove voters who have moved out of county, died or otherwise became ineligible), or the estimates for eligible residents could be inflated because they don’t take disqualifying factors like felony convictions into account.

“It’s not obviously an exact number, but it helps paint a picture of where there’s room for growth,” she said.

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