Earlier this year I wrote of a Republican-led “full court press” against the integrity of our elections in Tennessee. It seemed odd that during their first session in which they controlled both the House and Senate for the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans would carry so many bills that would, if passed, systematically disenfranchise voters of Tennessee.
The bills that got my attention included HB 0639/SB 0150, sponsored by Rep. Debra Maggart and Sen. Bill Ketron, which would have required a photo ID to vote (failed in committee); HB 1838/SB 1999 sponsored by Rep. Curry Todd and Senator Mark Norris, which would have required proof of citizenship to register to vote (failed in committee); and a third, HB 0614/SB 0872 also by Rep. Todd and Senator Ketron, which would have gutted the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (failed to get a majority of votes in the Senate).
But there’s more. Add to the above the following:
1) Legislation that did pass which added two new Republican members to the State Election Commission thereby giving the GOP a majority two years earlier than they would have had otherwise. Here you can watch Republican Senator Mark Norris threaten to let the Election Commission die if they are not given two more members and the majority on the State Election Commission.
2) The movement by the GOP to push out all the current county election administrators and replace them with more ideologically pure members of their own party. Why does this matter? Well, as Bev Harris over at BlackBoxVoting.org (America’s Election Watchdog Group) tells us, it’s not the votin’ that’s democracy, it’s the countin’!:
“Computerized vote-counting, whether on optical scan or on DREs, with paper ballots or without, is heavily reliant on the computerized compilation done by the central tabulator, which is under direct control of the election administrator and those he selects as IT administrators. These central tabulators have nifty features to allow manual changes in the vote counts. You control the tabulator, you own the election. What is happening in Tennessee is that political parties are choosing to put their own people in control of the computer, based on party affiliation.”
3) An attempt by the Republican Rutherford County Election Commission Chairman, Tom Walker, to violate the state’s Sunshine Laws by banning the press from a county election commission meeting. Mr. Walker, in display that can best be described as slinging ‘tude, says he “doesn’t care what the law says.” Republican Commissioner Dorris Jone added, “We’ve got some crazy laws in this country.” Today, Mr. Walker continued to break the law by denying the media access to the applications submitted for administrator of elections.
4) A suspicious visit to an election integrity activist from the TBI at the behest of the Republican Secretary of State – which smells a little like political intimidation.
These are the machinations we know about. What else might be going on behind the scenes?
*Many thanks to Bruce Barry who saved me another half-hour of trying to come up with a good title for this post.
[...] says “nefarious Republican strategy,” we say “full court press.” Tomato, [...]
[...] quote of the day goes to Jeff Woods, who is writing about Bernie Ellis, Mary Mancini, Tre Hargett and how the TBI basically went to some bloggers to investigate this [...]