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Press Release:
Washington, D.C. —
Judicial Watch, Inc., a non-partisan watchdog organization, along with Tennessee Fair Elections (TNFE) formally requested public records from Tennessee’s Coordinator of Elections, Mark Goins, citing apparent violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Federal law requires each state’s chief election official to maintain and make publicly available records related to voter roll maintenance, including statewide registration lists, address-confirmation notice recipients, and data on citizenship verification.
Earlier in 2025, TFE requested this information — but the state claimed it did not maintain required confirmation or citizenship-verification records.
In addition, the state claimed confidentiality of these records and an unreasonable monthly charge of $2500 for TFE to access the voter rolls. Judicial Watch argues these refusals and fees violate NVRA’s mandate and requested an immediate meeting to resolve the matter.
If Tennessee does not comply within the legally mandated 90-day notice period, Judicial Watch and TFE are prepared to file suit to obtain the records.
“Transparent, accurate voter rolls are the bedrock of free and fair elections,” said Judicial Watch. “When governments fail to provide required records, public trust suffers — and voters lose the ability to verify the legitimacy of our elections.”
4 Responses
Are we a Red State or am I mistaken? Get this man out of office if he can’t deliver the books.
Sounds like Mark Goins needs gone. Anybody know his take?
Great work TFE and Judicial Watch.
I have been researching election integrity in Tennessee for years and have found Tennessee’s Election Coordinator Mark Goins (and his boss, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett) the opposite of transparency. I have a stack of questions I have emailed Goins only to have him ignore the questions of citizens. Recently, Goins and the Tennessee State Election Commission refused to affirm what they and the state were doing to comply with President Trump’s election executive order when I went before them and posed the question. Which means they are deliberately ignoring the President’s EO. Also, they have refused to provide answers to questions about the firm that handles the voter rolls and voter registration for 91 of 95 Tennessee counties… with no contract.
So hopeful this pursuit has legs. We need transparency in Tennessee. And we’re not getting it from our election bureaucrats.
Good luck. So far that office, both Mark Goins and Tre Hargett have been UNRESPONSIVE to any attempt to clean up the rolls. Why is that in our SUPERMAJORITY REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT? Suspicious, imo.