A battle is brewing in the state over a new law requiring the use of paper ballots in the 2010 elections, and Secretary of State Tre Hargett says the legislature was too busy with other things to fix it.

Last year the House and Senate passed the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) requiring every county in the state use paper ballots in next year’s elections. The bill passed almost unanimously, and the Gov. signed the bill into law. But the newly appointed Secretary of State has spent the last nine months complaining about the law instead of working to implement the expressed will of the people of Tennessee.

Yesterday the Secretary of State’s office issued a questions and answers document on the TVCA outlining his office’s complaints about the new law. Chief among the complaints was the lack of time his office now has to fully implement the use of paper ballots in 2010.

Over the past nine months, however, Secretary of State Tre Hargett and State Election Coordinator Mark Goins have been busy instead working through Sen. Bill Ketron (R-13) to delay the law’s implementation until after the 2010 elections.

Rather than spend the greater part of the past year addressing their concerns with the law through Capitol Hill, the Secretary of State’s office has done nothing but waste time. Tennessee voters shouldn’t be surprised.

In the last legislature, the Republican controlled House and Senate wasted months on abortion, guns and booze bills. When they finally decided in the last minutes of session to get around to important issues like election reform, they failed the people of this great state.

A paper ballot advocate in Columbia, TN was recently visited by the TBI after the Secretary of State made an “unsubstantiated” terrorist threat claim against the man. Bernie Ellis had merely referenced the Battle of Athens on a blog. And that’s just the latest example of how Republicans are handling the laws that govern our election process.

Here in Rutherford County, the Election Commission Chair Tom Walker attempted to violate state law and told several people he didn’t care what the state law says. Another Republican election commissioner, Dorris Jones, was quoted as saying “We’ve got some crazy laws in this county.” Sen. Ketron’s success in declawing the state’s Ethics Commission conveniently makes investigating corrupt law makers a lower priority for the Registry of Election Finance.

There is a reason the Republican controlled House and Senate delayed addressing concerns over the use of paper ballots in 2010. Protecting the constitutional right we have for our vote to count in 2010 was trumped this year by a Republican legislative agenda more focused on abortion, guns in bars and booze bills. When given the chance to serve the people of Tennessee, Republicans chose instead to pander to fear, erode the safe guards of our liberties and freedoms, and ignore the priorities of Tennessee’s working families.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 9:06 am and is filed under 2010, Abortion, Elections, Ethics, Guns, Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.