Election Integrity activist Bernie Ellis, on his way to a meeting with Senator Beverly Marrero, was detained today by the Tennessee State Troopers, who act as security for the Capitol complex.
After a brief discussion in which they told him that he could only go straight to and from Senator Marrero’s office, they finally let him in.
According to Cory Bradfield in Marrero’s office who followed up with the on-duty Sargent, it was all a misunderstanding. They apparently were working off an “old email” they had received from Mr. Hargett and Bernie is actually free to roam about the Capitol.
If I were Sky Arnold piecing together my Fox17 news report on the battle for paper ballots brewing between Bernie Ellis of Gathering to Save Our Democracy, Chip Forrester of the TNDP (listen to Chip call for the firing of the Secretary of State), and Secretary of State Tre Hargett, I would have switched the order of presentation because if there ever was a money quote, he got it from Bernie Ellis that night.
In the report, Secretary of State Hargett leads viewers to believe that by implementing the Voter Confidence Act the state would be wasting taxpayer dollars to buy the machines that would count the paper ballots.
“I certainly don’t know it’s a wise use of taxpayer dollars when you know better technology is on the way. To go out and spend 25+ million dollars on equipment that is soon to be outdated.”
Bernie’s rebuttal was spot on:
“If Tennessee were using optical scan equipment and paper ballots that’s 20 years old, it would still be more secure reliable and verifiable than the most up-to-date touch screen machines…”
That said, there is a broader point to be used to rebutt Mr. Hargett. The money to buy the machines are federal dollars that were given to us to buy election equipment. It can be used for nothing else.
If Mr. Hargett is holding on to that money for an election “emergency” than I can think of none better than the replacement of machines in which he is unable to prove that even one vote has been counted accurately.
Bernie Ellis, best known as one of the organizers of Gathering to Save Our Democracy but more recently known to have been singled out by the Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett as a “terrorist threat,” responds to the “two legislative leaders, Representative Gary Odom and Senator Roy Herron” who on Thursday called a press conference “to outline the false and baseless arguments that Secretary of State Tre Hargett continues to cling to doggedly to keep our elections unsafe.” [podcast of full press conference coming soon]
In his press release, Ellis, who correctly characterized Leader Odom’s and Chairman Herron’s press conference as an “open meeting” where they “took questions openly from anyone in attendance” and Mr. Hargett’s response as “another press release issued in haste and without an opportunity for questioning by the same press and the same Tennessee voters, by an increasingly isolated and insulated Secretary of State,” responds point by point to Mr. Hargett’s rebuttal:
“Tre [Hargett] Says We Don’t Have the Money to Implement Safer Elections. Here’s the Truth”
For Tennessee voters to believe that the newer, safer voting systems will cost $11.7 million “extra†to implement, as Tre continues to say, we would also be forced to believe the following:
— It will cost $434,572 “extra†statewide to service and maintain 70% fewer voting machines.
— It will cost $211,640 “extra†statewide to deliver 70% fewer voting machines.
— It will cost $342,144 “extra†to conduct a single pre-election training session for poll workers.
Tre Hargett Says We Don’t Have The Time To Implement Safer Elections. Here’s The Truth
Right now, we have almost seventeen months left before the November, 2010 elections. Every other state that has made the switch from unverifiable touch-screen machines to paper ballots and optical scan machines has done so statewide in seven months or less. The way Tennessee voters who live in the reality-based world count time, seventeen months is more than seven months.
Tre Hargett Says There’s No Equipment Available For Safer Elections. Here’s the Truth
Tre wants Tennessee voters to believe that the Voter Confidence Act requires that our new voting machines must meet 2005 federal certification standards, something that no equipment now meets. In truth (and in the reality-based world), Tennessee voters who take the time to read the TVCA from beginning to end will not find the number “2005″ anywhere.
Tre Hargett Says Our Current Voting Equipment Is “Safe and Reliableâ€. Here’s the Truth.
In 2009, there are only a handful of election officials remaining anywhere in this country (or on this earth) who believe that slow, expensive and unverifiable touch-screen voting equipment is “safe and reliableâ€. Unfortunately, Tennessee is burdened by two of them – Tre Hargett and the source of the “safe and reliable†quote – Tre’s State Election Coordinator, Mark Goins.
Paperless touch-screen voting machines have now been proven conclusively to be inefficient, expensive, insecure, inaccurate and incapable of being audited. By using them, we have effectively privatized one of the most sacred public duties in our country – the responsibility to completely and accurately measure and transfer the power inherent in the “consent of the governed†to our elected leaders. We now know that these machines perform two vital functions very poorly: they record each voter’s choices, functioning much like $3,000 pens that use disappearing ink, and they total those votes, as if they were $5,000 abacuses that use invisible beads. If Ronald Reagan were here today, he would laugh out loud and ask us, “Just what part of ‘Trust but Verify’ do you not understand?”
Tre Hargett Says He Doesn’t Have to Respect the Law. Here is What the Truth Should Be.
Tre Hargett has demonstrated that his only commitment right now is to keep our elections unsafe and unverifiable in Tennessee and that he will do and say anything to accomplish that goal….
What kind of person would stoop to lies, half-truths, false information and pig-headed refusal to face the facts in order to keep our elections unsafe at any cost?…
Perhaps it is the kind of person who would dispatch his State Election Coordinator, Mark Goins, to Memphis two weeks ago to instruct Tennessee’s county election officials to openly and aggressively defy the Voter Confidence Act and to do anything they could to drag their feet another six months in hopes that, when the General Assembly reconvenes, they will provide cover for this un-American stance to keep our elections unsafe that the assembly has demonstrated not once but twice they are unwilling to do. (For the sake of democracy, we cannot afford the third go-round with the General Assembly to be the fatal charm for Tre Hargett’s’anti-democratic intentions.)
Bernie can write. Read the rest here [pdf download].
For over four years, Liberadio(!) with Mary Mancini and Freddie O’Connell has broadcast on Vanderbilt University’s WRVU 91.1 FM for two hours, one day per week. Beginning Wednesday, July 1, the popular talk radio show will expand to include an additional live hour every Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 to 10:00 am (CT) on BlogTalkRadio.
BlogTalkRadio launched in August 2006 and is a web-based social radio network which will enable Liberadio(!) to host a live, call-in talk show every weekday. Shows stream live directly from the Liberadio(!) Blog Talk Radio web page and, when finished, are archived automatically and made available at Liberadio.com, iTunes, and other RSS feed readers. More than 1.9 million listeners tuned into BlogTalkRadio in December.
“After every Monday morning show on WRVU, there is still so much to talk about,” says Liberadio(!) senior producer and co-host, Mary Mancini, “We look forward to continuing the conversation with our listeners and special guests every weekday.”
Liberadio(!) on BlogTalkRadio will debut Wednesday, July 1, with local election integrity activist Bernie Ellis, who was recently investigated for making “terrorist threats” by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at the behest of the Secretary of State.
Upcoming guests also include P.J Tobia, a journalist based in Afghanistan and author of a blog at TrueSlant.com; Betsy Phillips, author of the blog Tiny Cat Pants, contributor to the Nashville Scene’s blog, Pith in the Wind, and upcoming guest blogger at Feministe; Nashville Metro Councillady Emily Evans; Teddy Bart, author and Beyond Reason host; Steve Scarborough, environmental activist and proprietor of RoaneViews.com; and Bob Moser, author of “Blue Dixie: Awakening The South’s Democratic Majority” and Editor of The Texas Observer.
The schedule is:
Wed, 7/1: Bernie Ellis
Thursday, 7/2: PJ Tobia
Friday, 7/3: The Gals About May Town with Betsy Phillips and Councillady Emily Evans
Tuesday, 7/7: Bob Moser, author of Blue Dixie: Awakening The South’s Democratic Majority
Wednesday, 7/8: TBA
Thursday, 7/9: Teddy Bart
Friday, July 10: Steve Scarborough of Roaneviews.com
Tuesday, July 14: TBD
Wednesday, July 15: Wednesday, July 15: Evonne Tisdale from the Center for Community Change; Robert Grant, Jr. of Second Chances, and Nell Levin with Tennessee Alliance for Progress
“Since the terrestrial radio landscape for commercial talk is almost all conservative all the time in our local market,” says producer and co-host, Freddie O’Connell. “It’s been important for us to embrace the Web and online media. This is just one more step in our “Screw You Guys, We’re Doing It Ourselves” business model.
To listen to the Liberadio(!) on BlogTalkRadio, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/liberadio every Tuesday through Friday at 9:00 am (CT). To call-in and join the conversation, dial (347) 677-0660.
Since Mary Mancini & Freddie O’Connell began broadcasting together in 2004, they have been voted one of Nashville’s “Best Radio Personalities” in the Nashville Scene’s Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll three times. In April of this year, they were named to Talkers Magazine’s “Frontier Fifty,” a list of 50 talk radio acts that best represent “the important pioneering work taking place in the burgeoning world of internet talk media.” For more information, please contact us at feedback@liberadio.com or visit the website at www.liberadio.com.
This morning, Election Integrity activist Bernie Ellis emailed me a 1946 newspaper column by Eleanor Roosevelt in which she defends the men of McMinn County, WWII veterans all, who took the matter of free and fair elections into their own hands during the Battle of Athens (TN).
In the column – which The Daily Post Athenian Managing Editor Richard Edwards confirmed did indeed appear in the August 7, 1946 issue – is a general warning against abuse of power aimed at politicians everywhere.
We in the U.S.A., who have long boasted that, in our political life, freedom in the use of the secret ballot made it possible for us to register the will of the people without the use of force, have had a rude awakening as we read of conditions in McMinn County, Tennessee, which brought about the use of force in the recent primary. If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions.
…
Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered.
This is a lesson which wise political leaders learn young, and you can be pretty sure that, when a boss stays in power, he gives the majority of the people what they think they want. If he is bad and indulges in practices which are dishonest, or if he acts for his own interests alone, the people are unwilling to condone these practices.
If this is a Tennessee version of “A Christmas Carol” playing out before our eyes, who will visit Mr. Hargett next? Step right up, Alice Paul!
UPDATE: The reprint of Mrs. Roosevelt’s column originally appeared in the Athens, TN paper with the following: Editor’s Note — Our attention has been called to Mrs. Roosevelt’s column upon McMinn. She seems to have grasped the facts and significance better than any other outside writer.
Or perhaps election integrity activist Bernie Ellis is guilty of misuse of a metaphor. But what he is decidedly not guilty of – contrary to the opinion of Secretary of State Tre Hargett – is making a “terrorist threat” against the government of the state of Tennessee.
Yesterday, we posted the story Bernie sent us about his visit from two TBI officers:
I was just visited by two officers of the TBI, investigating a complaint they had received from the Secretary of State’s office (complainant unnamed), saying that I had recently sent an email directly to the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office, threatening violence against that office by invoking the memory of the Battle of Athens (TN). They were here to investigate my “terrorist threat against a government officialâ€.
Well, I’ve never sent any emails to this SoS’s office on any subject, now or at any other time. However, I told the TBI agents that I have several times invoked the Battle of Athens (TN) in my writings as the only alternative available to the citizenry if the sanctity of the ballot box cannot be assured.
Those who know Bernie – and that includes many, many people down at Legislative Plaza – know him to be a smart and passionate activist whose only fault may be that he lacks the editing chip in his brain that most of the rest of us have. You know, the one that renders us, out of fear, unable to say out loud the things we really mean.
Secretary of State Hargett could have found out if Bernie was capable of making a “terrorist threat” by simply asking his State Election Coordinator or one of the many legislators who worked with Bernie on either medical marijuana or election integrity legislation. Mr. Hargett, who spent a lot of time on the House floor this year, surely now knows enough of the same people Bernie does and if he had asked he would have found out that the comment was “Bernie just being Bernie” – passionate, eloquent, and single-minded in his quest to do what’s right for secure and verifiable elections in Tennessee. If he had asked he also would have found out that this type of thing doesn’t quite Bernie down, it fires him up.
Jeff Woods at Pith, God love’em, makes with the follow-up:
Newly installed Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett sicked the TBI on a political opponent on a trumped-up charge of making a “terrorist threat.” The case is now closed, the TBI having found no justification for Hargett’s complaint. Yes, it matters who governs.
…
Pith phoned Hargett’s spokesman, Blake Fontenay, for comment today. But guess what? He’d love to talk, of course, but he just can’t. The TBI won’t let him, he says, “because they’re still investigating.” Yes, it’s the old “we never comment on pending investigations” trick.
“I really am not supposed to say anything more than that at this point,” Fontenay apologized. “We’d love to respond but we were asked by the TBI specifically not to respond. There definitely is another side to this, and we wish we could talk about it, but it’s not usually advisable to get the TBI mad at you. My hands are tied at this time.”
So then we phoned the TBI, whose spokeswoman Kristin Helm said basically there is no investigation, and she doesn’t know what Fontenay is talking about.
“We had to go pay Bernie a little visit,” Helm said. “We had a public official who felt as though he was being threatened, who felt there was something floating around in cyberland that was a threat. A couple of agents went to talk to Bernie and pretty much found the threats were unsubstantiated.”
Helm confirmed the public official who complained was Hargett. Asked whether the TBI planned to engage in political intimidation at the behest of state officials, Helm said, “Political intimidation? We went out because he felt threatened and we needed to see if that threat was substantiated or not. I don’t know anything about any political intimidation.”
There’s no doubt that the TBI did what they had to do – they had to investigate the “threat,” especially if the Secretary of State asked them to do so. But the question remains, why Bernie? And why now?
In the Aug. 1, 1946 “Battle of Athens,” according to an account in the Tennessee Blue Book, “a pitched battle occurred between ex-Gis and supporters of the entrenched political machine of McMinn County.” The veterans basically contended that election fraud was afoot.
Hargett’s defense, according to Fontenay, is that he was worried about a comment Ellis posted last week on Humphrey’s blog: “He was calling something to the TBI’s attention out of an abundance of caution for his employees,” Fontenay says.
Tomorrow’s Senate State and Local Government Committee will also hear SB0872 by Senator Ketron (*HB 0614 by *Todd) which would gut the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (paper ballots, purchase of precinct- based optical scanner voting machines, mandatory hand count audits of paper ballots).
Odds are that this bill will be disposed of in place of one that will delay implementation of the bill until 2012, which is frustrating on a number of levels.
First, the original Voter Confidence Act was crafted for implementation in 2008. But then-Secretary of State Riley Darnell and Election Coordinator Brook Thompson said they couldn’t get it done by then. So, a compromise was reached for 2010. The bill for 2010 sailed though both houses (unanimously in the Senate and by an overwhelming majority – 96 to 3 – in the House) and the Governor happily signed it into law. We’ve already compromised once. Why do we need to again?
Second, what the hell was Mr. Darnell and Mr. Thompson doing for the past year? Because now we’re being asked, once again, to postpone our best chance – outside of hand counted paper ballots – of having secure and verifiable elections again because the current Secretary of State, Tre Hargett, and Election Coordinator, Mark Goins, say that 18 months is not enough time to obey the law.
Third, I’ve heard all the reasons why they say we must postpone and they are simply not satisfactory.
Last week during the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act Study Committee Democratic members of the General Assembly dispensed with some of them…and activists with the rest.
First, Rep. Gary Moore on fuzzy math and the “We have no place to store the paper ballots” excuse:
Rep. Moore: Right…but, again…I’ve looked at these numbers and I’m not going to get into an argument with you but these numbers are erroneous numbers because you’re assuming it don’t cost anything to store that other equipment…the DREs have to be stored somewhere now, do they not?
Wayne Pruitt: Yes, sir.
Rep. Moore: And they have to be stored in a secure place, do they not?
Wayne Pruitt: We take the most secure place available to us.
Rep. Moore: That’s what I thought. But does it show what it costs to do that? Does it show that cost? What I’m getting at, I don’t mind these numbers here if you say it costs an additional amount to hold an election – but this is what it costs to hold an election under the paper ballot scenario. What does it cost to hold an election under the DRE scenario? And then you put the two side by side and see what any additional costs would be. I think that would be a true, fair assessment. Thank you.
Next, Senator Roy Herron on “we don’t have enough time and/or money; we don’t have machines that qualify; we should wait until the feds butt in:”
Senator Roy Herron: Mr. Goins, what I’m wanting to do, that we can be as certain as human beings can be are legitimate, honest and fair. That is my number one goal…and if it costs a little bit, I understand that. I’d rather pay less than more but my real goal, my number one goal, is that when you’re talking about elections and the very basis for this republic to operate in this state to select its elected officials that’s worthy of some investment. Now, whatever mistakes have been made in the past, I can’t do anything about. Whatever the federal government may do in the future, I can’t do anything about. What I can do, I think, is to ask people I trust and respect like you and the Secretary of State, is to give us the recommendation on something that can give us a fair degree of certitude that the elections will be fair, honest and right. And we can know that when people cast their ballot it will be recorded accurately. That’s what I’m asking for. What I’m hearing from you, just to be clear, is you can’t get it done in 18 months, and you don’t know if there’s any standards that would work, and you’re not sure there’s any state that sets a good model. If that’s not what you’re saying you need to tell me the opposite of those three things, now or later, because that’s what I’m taking from you.
You know, this is why folks get frustrated with government. I understand that frustration but for you to tell me in 18 months “we can’t it done,” “woe is me,” “there’s no standard,” “there’s no state,” “I’m not man enough to get this done.” Now, surely that’s not what you’re telling me. You’ve got too much ability. I know the Secretary of State has too much ability because I worked with him too much to think otherwise to think that in 18 months we can’t figure out a way to get it done. Now whether we should have stimulus money or we shouldn’t, there is some one-time money around. And there ought to be some funds that we can put in this. And I don’t know anything more important to invest in than this democracy.
Finally, concerned citizens who have been eating and breathing election stats dispensed with the numbers:
Bernie Ellis, Gathering to Save Our Democracy: “We think, and I’ve shared this with the committee, and I’ll end with this point, rather than speculating on what the costs are, which again is really all the counties can do at this point, if you look at states like Florida and North Carolina who have gone through this process before us and have had enough counties who have used both systems so they can compare apples to apples, in Florida, the counties that went to DREs spent six times more money than the counties that went to OpScan [optical scan]. In North Carolina, over a six year period counties that used OpScan actual election expenses not estimated expenses but actual expenses that were 35-40% lower then counties using DREs. Those aren’t guesstimates, those are hard figures from comparable counties. If our concern – and I’ll finish with this – if our concern is saving money, and it should be, uh, a secondary concern to having an election process we can trust, but if it’s a concern, the best thing you can do for counties is implement OpScan by 2010. They’ll save 35-40% of their operating costs if they move that way and again if you have questions we can share with you why there is such a difference in cost.”
Tomorrow’s hearing of the Senate State and Local Government Committee is in Legislative Plaza Room 12 at 8:00 am.
On December 10, 2007,
in Uncategorized,
by Mary Mancini
Gathering to Save Our Democracy founder, Bernie Ellis sends a time sensitive dispatch, complete with action items. If you want next year’s voter registration drives to have more oomph then get down with Bernie:
Most of you are familiar with the serious concerns and risks associated with paperless voting systems, like the direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines, and their propensity for malfunctioning.
These paperless, non-verifiable voting machines were purchased in 2006 in many of our Tennessee counties with federal funds through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). These machines have already malfunctioned in Tennessee elections and multiple reviews of the security procedures used in these machines (including one in-depth examination in Shelby County) have produced clear and convincing evidence that these voting systems lack even elemental audit and/or recount capability. The evidence has mounted in the past four years that paperless electronic voting is insufficient for the demands of free and fair elections.
Now that we have had several election cycles with this equipment, the vulnerabilities of these electronic voting machines are quite obvious and require a more secure alternative NOW. Thirty-five states have already acted to change their voting machines to require voter-verified paper ballots (without waiting for the Federal government to act). However, Tennessee is among the 15 states that has not made this a priority. We are also now considered to be one of the eight most insecure states for election integrity in the country as a result of the mistakes we made in spending our HAVA funds.
Senator Joe Haynes and Rep. Gary Moore (among other legislators) introduced a joint bill to accomplish our goals in the 2006 legislature and re-introduced it in 2007, only to have it sent to a Study Committee. The study committee is meeting on December 18th at 1:30 in LP Room 12. In addition, the very influential TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) meets on December 12th and will vote on whether or not to recommend the election reforms recommended in the TACIR staff report, “Trust but Verify” [pdf], and included in the Haynes/Moore bills to the Study Committee before which these bills are being considered before being presented to the entire Tennessee legislature.
In the past month, more attention has been drawn to the threats on our election process by the release of the documentary film, “UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections”, by Nashville film-maker David Earnhardt. If you’ve seen this film, you know just how important our efforts are at this moment. If you haven’t seen the film, we strongly recommend that you do so. Additional public showings of the film are being organized throughout Tennessee now so if you’d like to know when and where the film is scheduled or you’d like to arrange a showing, please contact me.
Here are three things YOU CAN DO NOW to help us ramp up the discussion for voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits and perhaps get the very important legislation passed in the 2008 Tennessee Legislative Session.
Action Task 1Email or call the members of TACIR. (They meet on December 12 so please contact them right away.) Tell them that you want them to endorse the TACIR staff report, “Trust But Verify”. You also recommend to the legislature that we move rapidly away from paperless touch-screen voting in Tennessee and toward optical scan voting systems that start and end with a voter-completed paper ballot. You also endorse the need for mandatory random audits of those paper ballots to ensure that the opscan systems also count our votes completely and accurately. [Click here for a sample letter Bernie sent to the TACIR Commissioners]
Action Task 2 Contact the members of the Legislative Study Committee who will review the Haynes/Moore bill entitled: “Tennessee Voter Confidence Act” on December 18. Ask them to support repairing our election process by requiring voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits here in Tennessee as soon as possible, preferably 2008. [Click here for a sample letter Bernie sent to the Study Committee]
Action Task 3 Contact other Tennessee officials NOW to ask them to pay attention to this issue and to act themselves, if necessary, to insure that these reforms are enacted. Here’s a preliminary list of state officials that we should be contacting in some way. I hope each of you will e-mail your thoughts directly to some or all of these officials. In addition, you might want to mail copies of David Earnhardt’s documentary film entitled “UNCOUNTED, The New Math of American Elections” (DVD available online at ) or the postcards recommending that it be watched, to these same offices. I think the post-cards in particular can generate attention to these issues within these state offices and we will be happy to provide them to you and your friends. Call me at 931/682-2864 or send an email with your mailing address and let me know how many postcards you want and I’ll send them right out to you.
We are asking all of these officials to do the following:
To please give serious consideration to the number of threats which our elections face and to consider what they can do to restore election integrity in our state
To do whatever they can do in their official capacity to help us replace the current non-verifiable voting systems used in most Tennessee counties (touch-screen and push-button voting machines) with verifiable voting systems that incorporate paper ballots (for example, the optical scan voting systems)
To encourage others in positions of responsibility for our elections to expedite the changes necessary to make our elections more secure and verifiable before the November, 2008 elections or as soon as possible, by whatever means available.
Bottom line: It’s not too late to restore election integrity in Tennessee, but we must act NOW.
Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner John Keys
215 8th Ave. North
Nashville, TN 37243
615/741-6663
Keep visiting votesafetn.org for more information on our activities. Thanks in advance for any time you take to help us raise the volume for safe elections in Tennessee. Email us with your questions and suggestions.
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