Well, things are getting interesting. 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 official”.

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. (If you don’t know about the Battle of Athens, you need to Google it now. The agents said they had to Google it before they came out, and that it was a pretty impressive story)

We had a good conversation on my front porch and I explained the nature of the people who might have made this complaint against me. I also mentioned that one of them had issued a not-so-veiled threat against Mary Mancini two weeks ago at Legislative Plaza. (Mary has blogged about that). Before they left, I printed out my last letter to the state Senators that I sent the day they voted to protect the Voter Confidence Act, as well as a copy of my recent effusive tribute of Senator Tim Burchett. (Sorry, Dick, I just couldn’t help myself.)

I also asked the two TBI agents to deliver a message from me to whoever had caused them to have to drive to my farm today. Before they left, the lead agent repeated my message verbatim to make sure he had it right:

“Mr. Ellis would like whoever issued the complaint against him to grow a pair of balls, ‘man up’ (the agent’s words) and call him at any time to discuss any concerns they may have with him or with anything Mr. Ellis has ever said.”

The agent looked to me like he is going to be happy to deliver that message personally.

BTW, the lead agent said he called my sheriff and several others before coming out and was told that I was a reasonable man who could sit down and talk to anyone at any time about anything. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had government officials in our Secretary of State’s office who could do the same thing? Maybe one day, when we start counting ballots the way they’re cast.

Wow. Bernie is having a day. And before I have one (although I wouldn’t really mind having some coffee – and pie, maybe? – with some agents from TBI), I’d like to make clear that during my conversation with Coordinator Goins he did not threaten me personally. Rather, he threatened the implementation of paper ballots in Tennessee.

With a stroke of Gov. Phil Bredesen’s pen last year, Tennessee went from being one of the 12 worst states for election security to one of the 18 states with the most secure election systems in our country. We should all be proud of that accomplishment. It took us three years of study, hard work and perseverance to come to the conclusion that our elections are too important, too vital to the survival of our American way of life, to be left to unverifiable touch-screen voting machines (also called “direct record electronic” machines or DREs) that are easy to hack and impossible to audit.

The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations recommended [pdf] the move to paper ballots, as did the legislature’s Joint Committee on Voter Confidence. Many newspapers around the state editorialized for this legislation. This was truly a nonpartisan effort, and the success was cheered by all Tennesseans — regardless of political party — who want our votes to be counted as they were cast.

On June 5, 2008, more than a dozen Tennessee citizens joined Gov. Bredesen on the podium when he signed the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) — regular people who had worked hard to help save our democracy. On that day, the governor said: “The right to vote is one of the cornerstones of our democracy, and every voter deserves the 100 percent assurance that his or her vote will be counted. I am proud that Tennessee is taking a big step forward in improving voter confidence.” We were proud too, and shared the governor’s belief that the TVCA had made our elections safer and more secure for all citizens. But that was then. This is now.

Now we don’t have enough time to implement (although it’s 18 months until the next election). Now it’s too expensive to implement (even though a single optical scan machine counting paper ballots can do the work of more than 10 DREs). Now we don’t have the money to buy the equipment (we have the same 35 million from the federal government earmarked for buying new machines that we had when the bill was passed in 2008).

The only way to stop the delay is to contact Governor Bredesen (Phone: 615.741.2001, Fax: 615.532.9711, Email: Phil.Bredesen@tn.gov) and your legislators before Wednesday and tell all of them to keep the TVCA intact and on track for 2010.

(You can do a search for your legislator at www.capitol.tn.gov/legislators/.)

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.

Common Cause and Gathering to Save our Democracy, two groups who worked on voting machine reform and successfully worked to pass the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act this year, are concerned about malfunctioning and non-functioning voter machines in Davidson County.

In the Tennessean on Saturday, October 25, it was reported that several individuals doing early voting had extreme difficulty with their voting machines. The problems experienced included:

(1) Screens not appearing, which did not allow a vote to be recorded;
(2) The inability to vote for the preferred presidential candidate and the machine flipping the vote to another candidate even after several attempts by the machine operator to try to correct it. In one case, the machine operator finally was able to get the machine to work, it is hoped.

“We all share an interest in all votes being counted accurately,” said Dick Williams, state chairman of Common Cause. “Fairness demands that machines demonstrating defective operation be immediately taken out of service and/or the voter be allowed to use a paper ballot if the machine doesn’t work.”

“We ask the mayor to consult with the Metro Election Administrator to have this happen before more voters are disenfranchised. We ask all voters to immediately tell the machine operators if there is a problem and ask for a new machine or a paper ballot.”

If you are registered, you have the right to vote.

Contact: Dick Williams 886-4146
Common Cause/Gathering to Save our Democracy

If you have problems with your machine, i.e. votes flipping, can’t get your choice to register, etc., and you can’t get the machine taken out of service, please start telling everyone else in line exactly which machine is having problems and suggest they refuse to use that machine. This could put pressure on the officer of elections at your precinct to quarantine that machine. Perhaps others have already complained to the officials, election integrity activists, and lawyers waiting outside – but the other voters waiting in line also need to know.

Again, it still has to pass in the Senate so it’s time to get on the phone one more time. You can find your State Senator here. Once again, the message is: “I am counting on you to vote in favor of SB 1363, the Voter Confidence Act, when it comes to the floor for a vote.”

Dear Senator ______________,

I am a constituent of yours, and I would like to ask you to vote in favor of SB 1363, the Voter Confidence Act. It is expected to be ready for a floor vote in the next few days. If passed, this bill will ensure that we vote on durable paper ballots that are tallied by an optical scanner, and retained in a locked ballot box. These paper ballots also become the ballot of record in case a recount is necessary.

This new system will replace the touchscreen electronic voting machines, offering us verifiable ballots, no long lines at the polls, and a system that is less expensive for counties to use.

The cost of changing our voting equipment will be met with federal funds already held by our state.

I look forward to your voting YES to SB 1363. Thank you for your attention to my views on this critical issue.

Sincerely,
Name
Address
Phone Number

Go Senate!

It also might be nice to drop a quick note to your representative thanking them for their vote!

*Not to mention Jim Jones out in Williamson County, Jane Hardy, Lynn Williams, Shannon Williford, Linden Williford, Ann Williford, Holly Quick, Joe Irrera, Phil Scoggins, Elizabeth Barker, Chick Westover, Barbara Jones, Joyce Kisner, Mary Louise Linn, and Dave Thomas.

Go to VoteSafeTN.org to find all the information you need to contact the members of the committee and urge them to take immediate action so Tennessee may have secure November elections. And if you can, please attend the meeting.

The agenda [pdf] is interesting. Chairman Burchett has asked that Common Cause of Tennessee, Gathering to Save our Democracy, Secretary of State Riley Darnell, and State Election Coordinator Brook Thompson be present for questions/clarification from the committee. Hijinks will surely ensue.

In Tennessee, 93 out of 95 counties use electronic voting machines with no voter verifiable paper trail. That means there is no way to be completely sure of an accurate tally or recount in the event one is needed.

This Thursday, January 10, the legislature’s Voter Confidence Act Legislative Study Committee will meet to discuss the findings of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) report, “Trust But Verify,” which recommends that to improve election integrity in Tennessee we move away from electronic voting machines and replace them with paper-based optical scan machines. Now is the time for them, and us, to act.

Please contact the members of the Study Committee and urge them to move fast so that we may have optical scan machines in place prior to the November 2008 election. Urge them to support SB 1363 (Senator Haynes), HB 1256 (Representative Moore), legislation that will mandate that all voting equipment in Tennessee use or produce a voter-verified paper ballot and that statewide random post-election manual audits be conducted to verify the vote count. Ask them to make sure this is done prior to the November election. You can find all the information you need to act immediately, including email addresses, phone numbers, and talking points at http://www.votesafetn.org.

A couple of things to remember because the Election Commission and perhaps even some legislators will tell you the opposite – there is time to implement these changes before November and we do have the money. 35 million federal dollars allocated through the Help America Vote Act are available and waiting for this very rainy day. It is estimated that cost of replacing the machines in all 93 counties is 12 million, with another 12 million to be spent to help those voting who special needs.

I mean, really, if Tennessee legislator Jason Mumpower wants the balls back because he doesn’t trust computers to pick our lottery numbers, how can he possibly trust them to accurately count our votes?

Also, One of Nashville’s own, filmmaker David Earnhardt, has produced a marvelous and timely documentary on the subject that tells the story of how the issue of election integrity and electronic voting traveled from the fringes to the mainstream due to the hard work of some local activists as well as the bravery of whistleblowers throughout the country. These are the stories of citizens who recognized the threat to our franchise and chose to do the right thing. David’s film, Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections, will be have two screenings at the Belcourt Theatre on the Monday, February 4, 6:30 and 9:30, the night before Super Duper Tuesday.