The Help America Vote Act is a federal law to improve state and local voting procedures. In order to comply with the federal law and receive funding under this new act, Tennessee's General Assembly enacted 2005 Public Chapter 308, codified at Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 2, Chapter 2, Part 3. This state law provides for a statewide voter registration database maintained by the Tennessee coordinator of elections. This law establishes the Automated Electoral System as the official list of registered voters in the state and requires data from county election commissions to be transferred to the state via the Automated Electoral System not less than once daily.

County election commissions are required to purge voting registrations of all deceased registered voters appearing on the report transmitted by the coordinator of elections at least every 30 days, and beginning with the first day of any period of early voting, purges must be made daily, through the day of the election as the information is received from the coordinator of elections. T.C.A. § 2-2-133.