Joe Young

Joe Wm. Young, II was appointed Chief Deputy Administrator of Election by the Board of the Shelby County Election Commission in March 2008. He attended the University of Memphis and Christian Brothers University.

Young began his career managing primary healthcare centers for one of the largest healthcare systems in Tennessee. He later became the Chief Operating Officer of a Shelby County community-based mental healthcare center. 

He believes public service is important for everyone, and he has been active in community affairs since he was a young teenager. He learned the importance of voting, and public service at a young age, as a civil rights activist, and was a youth speaker for the NAACP in 1969. Young worked for the Memphis Urban League’s Unitary Schools Program to perform outreach to students to aid in desegregation, and worked to help students in newly integrated schools. 

He has worked with people at all levels of government both in the U.S. and in Australia, Armenia, France, Afghanistan, and Russia. Young is a regular co-writer of a frequently published series of voting articles in La Prensa Latina, the largest Hispanic paper in the Mid-South.

Young has served as a board member of the Inner-City Voter Education, Memphis Phase IV, and Midtown Mental Health Center. He served as first regional director of the Tennessee Democratic Party, and has interacted in that capacity with White House staff. Young has acted as chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Convention and chairman of Shelby County Democratic Party’s By-Laws Committee.

He served as legislative intern in the Tennessee General Assembly, and is a Distinguished Alumni of The Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature, where he served in the Senate. In 2017, he become a member for The League of Women Voters.

Serving on the Security Sub-Committee of Shelby County’s IT Committee, Young works closely with Linda Phillips, Administrator of Elections, on the day-to-day operation of the Election Commission, and oversees internal computer security.