The next big election in Tennessee is for governor, and the primary is just a year away. A new state law says voters are supposed to have paper-based voting machines to use by then. But a dispute over replacing touch screen voting machines has taken a partisan turn. The stalemate hinges on how to interpret one line of the Voter Confidence Act. WPLN’s Blake Farmer reports.

Audio for this feature is available here.

INTERVIEWS:
Sean Flaherty, researcher with Verified Voting Foundation
Scott Allen, Hamilton County Election Commission deputy
Rep. Gary Odom, House Democratic leader
Mark Goins, coordinator of elections
Matt Masterson, researcher with Election Assistance Commission



The infamous “hanging chads” of the George W. Bush/Al Gore recount drove voting machine changes throughout the country. In 2004, Tennessee spent 31-million dollars to switch primarily to digital touch screen machines.

Sean Flaherty of the Verified Voting Foundation says touch screens may be user friendly, but they have a problem – no real paper trail.

FLAHERTY: “There is a paper print out that you can do of the election results, but that’s simply printing out the electronic record.”

…and that makes a recount virtually meaningless, which is why the Tennessee legislature passed a law to join 30 other states using paper systems.

Only two of Tennessee’s 95 counties currently use systems with paper ballots – Pickett and Hamilton. From his office in Chattanooga, Scott Allen of the Hamilton County Election Commission prepares a test ballot for an optical scan machine.

ALLEN: “For president they have Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin Roosevelt and also a write in line.”

REPORTER: “Ok, so we’ve got a phony race. So, how about let’s just vote for Thomas Jefferson.”

ALLEN: “Ok. Take a pen. Color in the oval for Thomas Jefferson, and simply slide the ballot through the machine and the ballot drops into the ballot box and stacks up with the rest of them.”

REPORTER: “Have you shoved it in the machine yet.”

ALLEN: “Yes.”

The ballot remains in that locked box unless the election is close enough for a recount. That’s not happened in Chattanooga as long as optical scan voting machines have been in use. But elsewhere, one high-profile Senate race came down to a margin of several hundred votes last year. Al Franken challenged incumbent Norm Coleman.

FRANKEN: “Minnesotans have earned the right to take pride in the transparency and the thoroughness of our process and in the integrity of our election officials.”

Minnesota uses paper-based optical scan voting machines. A recount ended up overturning the initial results, which had Coleman as the winner. Close elections have happened here too.

ODOM: “I saw one council race here in Davidson County, Ralph Cohen won by one vote.”

That was 1983. Representative Gary Odom says if it happened today, election officials would be left with no way to recount. And here’s where the partisan spat begins. Odom, the House Democratic leader, is pushing, even shoving, the state’s Republican coordinator of elections to follow through on the Voter Confidence Act. The law passed nearly unanimously last year and requires the paper-based voting machines to be in place statewide by the 2010 election.

Election coordinator Mark Goins wants to delay the switchover. He says federal money to replace voting machines should be spent wisely.

GOINS: “If you’re going to be going out and spending 25-million dollars, you don’t need to be buying old technology. You need to be buying new technology.”

The Voter Confidence Act says new optical scan machines must meet – quote – “applicable voluntary voting system guidelines.” Goins says that means the 2005 standards, only there are no machines certified to that standard. He calls it a catch-22.

GOINS: “We have a law that’s mandated that it certainly appears, we can’t comply with.”

Goins has a memo from the legislature’s legal staff that backs his interpretation of the law. But Representative Odom says machines certified to the 2002 standard will have to suffice, especially since they’re the only ones available. He actually introduced an amendment this year to clear up the matter and allow machines that meet the 2002 standard. Odom says the election coordinator’s office successfully lobbied to kill it.

ODOM: “Sounds to me like someone who just does not want to see the law implemented.”

The election coordinator’s office says it’s true, he doesn’t want the state buying machines not certified to the latest standard. But don’t expect the federal agency in charge of writing those guidelines to jump in the middle of the dispute. The Election Assistance Commission makes suggestions, not mandates, says the EAC’s Matt Masterson.

MASTERSON: “The EAC’s testing and certification program and the standards that they use are voluntary and the states can choose to use the program in any way that they find necessary.”

So the state’s predicament is self-imposed, and the clock is ticking. Manufacturers say, ideally, voting machines need to be in place a year out. That’d be now for next year’s August primaries. The Attorney General may soon weigh-in, but both sides may end up in court, either trying to delay the law or enforce it.

For Nashville Public Radio, I’m Blake Farmer.