Tennessee’s abortion amendment passed by overcoming a vote deficit concentrated almost entirely in the state’s two most populous counties, Shelby and Davidson, a Data Reporter analysis of unofficial returns from last-week’s election indicates.
Voters in Shelby County, which sits in the state’s Southwestern corner and includes Memphis, cast 48,135 more “no” votes than “yes” votes on the amendment. Voters in Davidson County, the centrally located county that includes the capital, Nashville, cast 45,049 more “no” than “yes” votes. Voters in five more counties – Knox, Hamilton, Haywood, Houston, and Hardeman – collectively cast 5,235 more “no” than “yes” votes.
The state’s remaining 88 counties all produced surpluses of “yes” votes, ranging from a net of 106 in Perry County to a net of 8,005 in Williamson County. But those relatively modest surpluses added up. Statewide, the amendment passed 728,751 to 646,427, a difference of 72,324 votes, or a little more than five percentage points.
Net votes, by Tennessee county, on Amendment 1
Bars show the number of votes for Amendment 1 minus the number of votes against Amendment 1 in each of Tennessee’s 95 counties.
Rutherford County, which includes Murfreesboro, posted a net of 7,050 “yes” votes, the fourth largest number statewide. Figures for the analysis came from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s November 4, 2014 Unofficial Election Results page.
A statewide MTSU Poll of registered voters conducted the week before the election suggested that voting on the amendment would be close.
The poll showed 39 percent in favor of the amendment, 32 opposed, 15 percent undecided, and the rest not voting on the amendment or declining to answer. Amendment supporters’ 7-percentage-point lead over opponents was statistically significant, but there was no way to know what, if anything, undecided voters would do on election day, and among registered voters likeliest to vote, the amendment’s lead in the poll shrank to five percentage points, a statistical tie.
The amendment, popularly known as Amendment 1, specifies that Tennessee’s constitution does not include a right to an abortion and gives state lawmakers more power to regulate abortion.
Ken Blake, editor, The Data Reporter