As Secretary of State for Tennessee, Tre Hargett continues to canvass the state to encourage voter participation.
Hargett, who was elected to serve as the 37th secretary of state in 2009, and re-elected in 2013 and 2017, was the guest speaker at the Jackson Rotary Club’s weekly meeting, Wednesday.
“This is my third trip to Jackson in the last 21 days,” Hargett said, “When we started Early Voting, I started visits that morning … in the last two weeks we have been to every West Tennessee county to see how the elections are being conducted.
“Now, I would tell you, you would be really proud of our election officials around the state of Tennessee, and there is a great partnership between the county and the state.”
Hargett said both political parties – Democrat and Republican – are fired-up about this election.
“We began planning for what an election looks like during a pandemic,” Hargett said, “We started advertising early on, saying ‘here are the different reasons you could vote absentee in the state of Tennessee.’
“We started seeing a lot of people requesting absentee ballots.”
But the day of the election continues to be popular, considering Hargett said over 60 percent of the voters who cast ballots in Thursday’s election will have voted in-person.
Hargett also recognized State Senator Ed Jackson (R-Jackson) with the 2019-2020 NASS (National Association of Secretaries of State) Medallion Award for his ‘dedicated leadership and committment to protecting election integrity and exceptional advocacy of voter participation.’
“It was a surprise and an honor,” Jackson said of the award, “They came to me and asked me to take this bill and it was a huge – very complicated bill – and I was able to grasp what it meant and what the consequenses were for what was happening in the state – where some voter registrations weren’t good.
“I was happy to pass the bill and enhance it during the last session.”
(PHOTO: Tre Hargett, Tennessee’s Secretary of State, left, presents with Ed Jackson (R-Jackson) with the 2019-2020 NASS Medallion Award)
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