NewsChannel 5.com - Nashville, Tennessee - Tenn. Redoubles Efforts To Purge Dead Voters

Tenn. Redoubles Efforts To Purge Dead Voters

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said he is redoubling efforts to remove dead people from voter registration rolls around the state.

Hargett issued a press release Friday to say that he has charged Elections Coordinator Mark Goins with comparing the state voter registration database with a national death master list provided by the Social Security Administration.

That check revealed 9,800 cases of deceased voters and up to 2,200 more that may be purged from the rolls.

Hargett's office wants to avoid a repeat of a 2005 special state Senate election in Memphis in which the Democratic winner received two votes on behalf of dead people.

Sen. Ophelia Ford was later ousted because felons and nonresidents were also found to have voted in her narrow victory. She was later re-elected to the seat.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)