On this week's episode of WKNO's Behind the Headlines, host Eric Barnes is joined by Linda Phillips, Administrator of Elections for Shelby County, and Mark H. Luttrell Jr., Chairman of the Shelby County Election Commission, for a conversation that dives deep into how local elections work—and what happens during a rare off year like 2025, when no elections are currently scheduled in Shelby County.
"It's possible [there could still be an election]," Phillips said, "if there's a vacancy in the General Assembly." But as of now, Phillips says her team is taking a much-needed breather. "[The elections in] ’23 and ’24 about killed us."
Even in a non-election year, the work continues. Phillips and her staff are already deeply involved in planning for the 2026 election cycle. This includes creating a detailed operational calendar, maintaining voter lists, calculating ballot lengths, and recruiting poll workers.
Voter list maintenance is a federally mandated process that often leads to confusion. Phillips stated that while voters cannot be removed just for not voting, those who have not voted in the past four years will receive a notification by mail. "If we get the card back as undeliverable because the address is bad or [if the voter] says, 'Oh, no, I've moved to Georgia,' then we'll remove that voter."
Concerns about voter list accuracy sometimes feed into broader debates about election security. However, despite the national conversation surrounding election fraud, Phillips pointed out that actual instances of election fraud in Shelby County are rare. "Maybe we refer two cases a year to the DA," she said. Many times, involving individuals with felony convictions who mistakenly think they are eligible to vote.
Luttrell, who joined the commission in 2022 after serving as Shelby County Mayor and Sheriff, described his firsthand experience working the polls in 2020 as "an eye-opener." The teamwork among bipartisan poll workers struck him. "It's a beautiful picture to see Republicans and Democrats in the same place working together in harmony."
That spirit of cooperation is built into the structure of Tennessee's election commissions. Each of Tennessee's 95 counties has a five-member election commission. The majority party in the state legislature controls three seats and names the chair, while the minority party holds two, including the secretary. Currently, this gives Republicans a majority on the Shelby County Election Commission.
Still, both Phillips and Luttrell emphasized that partisan affiliation plays little role in the commission's daily work. "We emphasize that [poll workers] are not there to be political," Phillips said. "They're there to make sure that the election is run fairly."
Looking ahead to 2026, Shelby County voters will see a packed ballot. It will include races for the County Mayor, all 13 County Commissioners, Sheriff, Trustee, Assessor, Register of Deeds, and all county court clerks. Additionally, several seats on the Memphis-Shelby County School Board will be up for election. At the state and federal level, the ballot will include the governor's race, all state House seats, half of the state Senate seats, and all nine of Tennessee's U.S. House seats.
"We're estimating ballot length now," said Phillips. "Ballot length is a huge factor in how many [poll workers] you need. If it takes somebody 90 seconds to vote, that's a whole different election than if it takes them five minutes."
Also in preparation are outreach efforts to high school seniors. Phillips said her office contacts every public, private, and charter high school in Shelby County to register qualified students. "We've got a number of schools… where 85 to 100 percent of their eligible seniors registered to vote," she said. Some schools even receive the Ann Dallas Dudley Award from the Secretary of State's office for achieving that benchmark.
Additionally, part of preparing for 2026 is upgrading the election infrastructure. Shelby County recently finalized a contract to dispose of more than 1,500 outdated voting machines and 100 electronic poll books, following strict protocols for secure destruction. Under the current system, voters can choose either a hand-marked paper ballot or a ballot-marking device, which prints a paper summary of their selections. "We absolutely love it," Phillips said of the new equipment, adding that "the vast majority of voters are selecting the ballot marking device ballots."
With elections momentarily on hold in 2025, officials say this calm period provides a unique chance to concentrate on the details before turnout, technology, and timing align again in the upcoming major cycle.
