If State Election Coordinator Mark Goins wants us to believe that he doesn’t have the time to implement the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act by the 2010 election, but that he really really really wants to implement it by 2012 – which would mean supplying paper ballots and buying the optical scan machines to read them – then why does the amendment [pdf] he offered today change this:
2-20-101. Purchase or lease of voting system. — [Effective January 1, 2009.]
(a) Notwithstanding any other state law to the contrary and consistent with federal law, after January 1, 2009, any voting system purchased or leased shall be a system using precinct-based optical scanners.
To this:
AMEND Senate Bill No. 872 House Bill No. 614* by deleting all language after the enacting clause and by substituting instead the following:
SECTION 2. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 2-20-101(a), is amended by deleting the language “January 1, 2009″ and substituting instead the language “November 1, 2012″.
Seriously. I’d like to know how we will be able to vote on paper ballots in November 2012 and have them counted on machines that we wouldn’t be required to purchase until AFTER November 2012?
Perhaps my dream of hand-counted paper ballot elections is closer than I think.
