Tennessee Officials Say Voter Registration Lookup Website Fixed After Voters Reported Missing Records

Image: Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer raised concerns on Feb. 3, 2026 after voters reported a state website was not able to locate their voter registration status. The state said the problem was quickly fixed. Image Credit: Karen Pulfer Focht

***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only.

By Cassandra Stephenson [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

An issue preventing voters from verifying their registration status on a state website Tuesday was caused by human error and has been fixed, according to a spokesperson from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Elections Division. 

Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer raised concern over the issue in a Tuesday night social media post. Dozens of people reported that they too checked their voter registration status on the state’s tnmap.tn.gov lookup form and received a troubling message: “No record was found.”

“I had a lot of people worried they were no longer registered to vote,” State Rep. Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, said in a video posted to his Facebook page Wednesday evening.

Multiple people noted that while the website could not locate their registration, the state’s GoVoteTN app did show their registration as active. 

“A file that’s routinely loaded to update the voter lookup was loaded before it was ready late yesterday,” Ben Hill, communications director for the Secretary of State’s Office, wrote in an email to the Lookout Wednesday. “As soon as we were alerted and reached the person responsible for loading the file, it took less than five minutes to resolve.”

Hill noted that the GoVoteTN app, which he said is “most commonly used to verify registration,” was functioning properly throughout.

Sawyer first posted about the problem around 8 p.m., and posted an update around 9:15 p.m. stating that the page seemed to be restored. 

“This is still concerning and requires explanation from the state,” she wrote. “The 2026 elections are too important for us to take ‘glitches’ at face value.”

“What is not a glitch is that 25% of voters in Shelby County have been listed as ‘inactive,’” Pearson said Wednesday after a meeting with Secretary of State Tre Hargett.

Once registered to vote in Tennessee, a person remains registered to vote unless they die, request their registration be purged, move to a new county, register to vote in another jurisdiction, change their name (other than through marriage) and fail to notify their local election commission within 90 days, or the election commission receives confirmation that the voter was convicted of a crime that makes them ineligible to vote.

County election commissions are responsible for removing voters from the rolls in those circumstances.

An inactive status indicates that the county election commission has received evidence that a voter has moved and sent a confirmation notice to a voter, but has received no response. Inactive voters are still eligible to vote, but will be purged from voter rolls if they do not update their registration or vote within four years after the notice was sent, according to the Secretary of State’s website.

Voters who moved within the same county can update their registration using Tennessee’s online voter registration application, or in person at a polling location. During early voting, a voter can go to any polling location to update their address and vote, the website states. On the day of an election, a voter must complete an affidavit attesting to their current address before they can vote at their new polling location.

Pearson said the more than 125,000 Shelby County voters listed as “inactive” are at risk of being purged from the rolls and needing to re-register.

“Some people do not know that they are inactive in the Secretary of State and the Election Commission’s system so it is imperative that everyone make sure that they update their addresses and that they vote,” Pearson wrote.

Hill said 2,871 voters have been purged from Shelby County’s rolls since Jan. 1, including 2,361 deceased individuals. Two voters requested removal, 499 moved, three were convicted of felony charges and six were removed for judicial reasons. 

Voters with questions about their status can contact the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at 1-877-850-4959, visit GoVoteTN.gov or reach out to their local election office, Hill said.