Sen. Bill Ketron (R-13) is sponsoring a bill (SB 0872) to delay the implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act. The law requires all counties to switch to optical scanned paper ballots and will be paid for by $25 million in federal funds from the Help America Vote Act.
What 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 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.
[...] have is a commitment to punishing the less fortunate, endangering America’s favorite pastime, screwing with free and fair elections, killing old people cheap, and interfering in local [...]