TNDP Calls for Implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act
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NASHVILLE, TN – Today, the Tennessee Democratic Party called for state legislators to reject a plan to delay implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA).
“When the TVCA is implemented, Tennessee’s elections will be more secure, more accurate, and less expensive. There’s no good reason to wait,” said TNDP Chair Chip Forrester.
The TVCA was passed with broad bipartisan support and signed into law by Governor Phil Bredesen on June 5, 2008. The TVCA requires that all Tennessee counties make the switch to paper ballots before the November 2010 election.
Currently, only Hamilton and Pickett counties use paper ballots. The other 93 counties use paperless touch-screen voting machines, also known as Direct Record Electronic (DRE) machines. DREs are expensive to maintain, prone to error, and have no mechanism in place to produce verifiable results or meaningful recounts.
The legislation that would delay the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act is SB 0872, sponsored by Sen. Bill Ketron, (R-Murfreesboro) and HB 0614, sponsored by Rep. Curry Todd (R-Collierville).
“It’s true that the economy has forced everyone to cut back,” Forrester said. “And I recognize that our county commissioners are concerned about the cost of implementing the TVCA. But the new optical scan machines will be paid for by $25 million in federal funds from the Help America Vote Act. Plus, other states report that switching from DREs to paper ballots actually saves money in the long run.”
“Tennesseans deserve full confidence in the security of our elections. We can’t afford to put these crucial reforms on hold.”
Link to bill
Link to fiscal report (PDF)
May 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
[...] Tennessee Democratic Party understands that the very foundation of our democracy is at stake and has come out in favor of implementing the [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
[...] would make Sen. Ketron want to delay implementing fair elections in 2010? “When the TVCA is implemented, Tennessee’s elections will be more secure, more [...]
May 7th, 2009 at 11:31 am
KEEP THE TN VOTER CONFIDENCE ACT INTACT AND ON TRACK FOR 2010:
PLEASE VOTE AGAINST HB 0614 AND SB 0872
The Voter Confidence Act passed overwhelmingly last year. It was a good idea – to replace our non-verifiable, expensive and error-prone touch-screen voting machines by 2010 with paper ballots that are read by optical scan (aka “opscan”) machines, followed by random manual audits. It remains a good idea now. With efforts now to delay, weaken or repeal the Voter Confidence Act, why should we stay on track?
Paper ballots/opscan voting is faster than voting on touch-screen machines – at least five to ten times faster. That is why it only takes one optical scan machine (and one ballot-marking device for disabled voters) to replace all touch-screen machines now assigned to our voting precincts. Beginning in 2010, long lines at voting places should occur with much less frequency than they do now when we use touch-screens.
Paper ballots/opscan voting is cheaper than voting on touch-screens. Because we eliminate up to 70% of the voting equipment needed when we move to paper ballots/opscan, our counties save money they now spend to program, service, test, store and transport so many touch-screen machines. This isn’t a guess – it is a fact. Studies in Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and other states have confirmed that voting with paper ballots/opscan is 30-40% cheaper than voting the way we do now. So if your concern is helping local governments save money, the best thing you can do is implement the Voter Confidence Act.
Paper ballots/opscan voting is safer than voting on touch-screen machines. It is now impossible to conduct an audit or recount of elections to determine whether our current voting machines are counting our votes the same way they were cast. By switching to paper ballots/opscan, our elections start and end with paper ballots that can be hand-counted to insure that our elections are correctly decided.
Faster. Cheaper. Safer. These are all good reasons why you supported the Voter Confidence Act. They are also good reasons to keep the Voter Confidence Act intact and on-track for 2010.
One last point: We should not reduce the number and frequency of post-election audits, nor replace hand-counted audits of ballots with another run through an opscan machine. This is a bad (i.e., slower, more expensive, less safe) idea. A recent CIA report showed that there are five separate stages in the voting process where voting machine software can be compromised, leading to false and incorrect results. If there are problems with the software (whether accidental or intentional), a hand-count of ballots will reveal these problems when a machine-recount will not.
Here in Tennessee, we don’t back up on voting rights. We’d prefer to lead the way, in the direction of freer, fairer and more trustworthy elections. We are the state that made women’s suffrage a reality, we are the state of Baker v. Carr, we are the state where the Battle of Athens (TN) was fought (and won). In fact, we are the state whose overwhelming, bipartisan support for the TN Voter Confidence Act was applauded nationwide last year.
We are not the state that decides to delay democracy, to deny voters their hard-earned right to be completely confident in the outcome of our elections. The TN Voter Confidence Act established the “Tennessee standard” for trustworthy elections — paper ballots and random manual audits. We need to meet that standard by 2010 if the “consent of the governed” is to be freely, fairly and accurately measured here.
As Tennesseans – as Americans — we should accept nothing less.
Gathering To Save Our Democracy
Common Cause of Tennessee
June 26th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
[...] Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), instrumental in Tom Walker’s appointment as RCEC Chairman, introduced the bill to repeal the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) and stymie efforts to make Tennessee’s elections verifiable and secure. Thankfully, Sen. [...]