LIBERADIO(!)

This morning, the Tennessee secretary of state, Tre Hargett, released an official Q&A [PDF] that his spokesperson, Blake Fontenay, says addresses “what their office has done to implement the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act.” Below is each question and answer. And my answers to his answers.

What is the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act?
The Tennessee Voter Confidence Act is a state law that requires all 95 of Tennessee’s counties to use paper ballots with optical scan voting machines by November 2010.

The law also adds two additional and extremely important provisions to our election law. First, there is a provision mandatory, random hand-counted audits a specific percentage of precincts. The hand-count is in place to catch any problems with the optical scan machines i.e. not counting the ballots correctly. The second provision is that the paper ballot become the ballot of record in the case of a close election or recount. This should be of special interest to both candidates and election officials who want to make sure that the will of the people is done. These two provisions add an additional layer of security and verifiability to Tennessee’s elections.

What is the Tennessee Department of State’s position on the Voter Confidence Act?
The Department of State is committed to helping counties implement the act. There are, however, significant financial and logistical hurdles that counties will have to overcome in order to meet the 2010 deadline.

Not so significant, as you will see.

What’s the advantage in switching to optical scan machines?
Supporters believe the machines make it easier to conduct recounts and verify election results.

What’s will all this “Supporters believe…” stuff?!?! What supporters know is that the advantage of switching to optical scan machines is that we will be switching to PAPER BALLOTS to record the intent of our vote before the optical scan machines even touches it. It’s the PAPER BALLOTS which will make recounts even POSSIBLE and give us verifiable elections results. The touch-scree machines without paper ballots that we use now are not capable of giving a meaningful recount. A recount with the machines we use now consists of pressing the same button and getting the same total every time. And don’t even get me started on verifiable elections with the machines we use now. Our votes now are counted in secret by secret counting software and we have no idea what happens to our vote once it is put into the machines we use now. No idea. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Does the Department of State oppose the use of optical scan machines and paper ballots?
No. The Department of State already allows Tennessee counties to use optical scan machines if they choose.

Good to know.

Who pays for the optical scan equipment?
The state will pay the cost of purchasing the machines. However, county governments will be responsible for other costs associated with the act, such as ballot printing, ballot storage and election worker training.

The state will pay the cost of purchasing the optical scan machines with federals dollars given to us when the Help America Vote Act was passed. We have 34 million of HAVA funds. 25 million of which will be used to purchase the machines. There is approximately 11 million in extra funds that could be used to offset the costs for each county. That said, no one has of yet given a good reason why the cost estimates used as evidence that implementation of the TNVCA would be cost prohibitive were so wildly disparate. Privacy booths would cost $10.00 each in Haywood County and $750.00 each in Cannon County? Couldn’t we leverage economies of scale here and have all the counties get the lowest cost and then get a discount on top of that for bulk purchases?

Will voters get printed “receipts” that show how they voted?
No. That’s not a requirement of the Voter Confidence Act.

Correct. A “paper receipt” would violate the “vote in secret, count in public” that is the very foundation of our free and fair election system and what we are fighting so very hard to bring back to Tennessee.

What are some of the hurdles to meeting the implementation deadline?
Cost is obviously one, during an economic climate in which many local governments are struggling financially. However, a much bigger issue is the lack of availability of the equipment. The act requires counties to use equipment that meets the security and reliability standards adopted by the federal Election Assistance Commission in 2005. Currently, there are no vendors who sell equipment that meets those standards – in Tennessee or elsewhere in the country. Additionally, the commission’s certification process is very thorough, so it appears there is insufficient time for a vendor to complete that process and become certified before the 2010 deadline.

Cost – see “Who pays for the optical scan equipment.” As for the claim that there is a lack of available equipment – while it is true that the TNVCA requires counties to use equipment certified to the EAC’s 2005 standards, this could have easily been amended during the last legislative session to state that the counties would be required to use machines certified to the EAC’s 2002 standards, of which there are significant amounts. That said, there are additional problems with this statement. First, the EAC’s 2005 standards are almost the exact same as the 2002 standards. The only difference is that some language to accommodate voters with disabilities has been changed. In addition, no machines certified to the 2002 standards were de-certified when the 2002 standards were reissued as the 2005 standards. As a matter of fact, two Tennessee counties are using these machines.

So why did the Secretary of State’s office spend 6 months trying to delay the implementation of the TNVCA when all it had to do was amend the law to include the ability to purchase machines certified to the EAC’s 2002 standards?

More importantly, the answer to this question puts the emphasis of the TNVCA on the wrong element – the machines. The emphasis of the TNVCA has always been on the PAPER BALLOTS, not the machines. We are moving to paper ballots because machines cannot always be trusted to perform correctly – no matter what standards they are certified to.

So what are the alternatives then?
One would be for the General Assembly to lower the security and reliability standards for the equipment. Another would be to delay implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012.

Oh no you didn’t. See above. Requiring machines purchased to the 2002 standards would no be lowering the “security and reliability” of anything. And any attempt to change the TNVCA’s requirement standards from 2005 to 2002 was rejected by the sponsors of the bill that would have delayed implementation – Rep. Curry Todd and Senator Bill Ketron.

Isn’t supporting a delay just a way of killing the act?
Not at all. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. And it makes more sense to take the time necessary to get the best quality equipment rather than settle for equipment that’s less reliable and less secure.

Oh, no. Again no you didn’t. What could possible be less reliable and secure than the machines we use now in 93 out of 95 counties!?!? You know, the touch screen black boxes that take our votes and does God knows what with them in it’s secret little counting software before it spits it out when the machine operator hits the tally button!!! Wait…stop…ok…I’m ok…Again, optical scan machines certified to 2002 standards are not “less reliable and less secure.” They are used in 2 counties in Tennessee and 49 other states.

Is this an issue in which partisan politics comes into play?
It shouldn’t. During the General Assembly’s recently completed legislative session, a bill that would have delayed implementation until 2012 passed the House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support. That bill came one vote short of the constitutional majority needed for passage in the Senate.

But not as much support as the original TNVCA paper ballot bill had in 2008. It passed almost unanimously in the House (3 “NO” votes) and unanimously in the Senate. When given facts instead of excuses – which kept changing – a simple amendment that would have amended the TNVCA could have easily passed.

Instead, the secretary of state’s office spent six months lobbying for a delay.

If the secretary of state had a real desire to give the people of Tennessee the secure and verifiable elections we clamor for, he would have found a way instead of excuses.