The Nashville Tennesseen endorses paper ballots -- says we need them this November!!

[Fly by night]

Here's the link to the full op-ed page on the need for paper ballots in Tennessee by November '08.

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION

The newspaper did an outstanding job, publishing pro-paper ballot pieces by a Republican state legislator and by one of our group's (Gathering To Save Our Democracy) members. It also includes a tepid piece by Snidely Whiplash, our State Election Coordinator, on why our elections can't be secure in Tennessee this year. There are also letters from the public, running 4-to-1 in favor of paper ballots by November. The newspaper's own editorial could also not be stronger in favor of letting our votes count in '08.

After yesterday's cover story on election integrity in the Nashville Scene,
http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2008/01/31/A_Vote_of_No_Confidence/
the "buzz" for better elections could not be stronger today in the Orange State.

Now let's see what comes of all this. If all y'all want to help, go to www.votesafetn.org and spend a few minutes helping the cause of election integrity here in Tennessee. You can quickly email our Governor and others from the web-site to tell them that having a verifiable election in Tennessee is important to people all across our state (and the globe.) Thanks kindly.

[AtLiberty]

1. ?

Where does this paper rank in Nashville? Is it mainstream?

It's wonderful coverage. I sure hope it has good exposure.

[Fly by night]

2. The Tennessean is Nashville's daily paper, with one of the largest circulations in the state.

It is considered Tennessee's paper of record. We are very pleased by the coverage.

[Stevepol]

3. Wow! FBN. Bet you're pleased about this! Has to have some effect! K&R!!

I'm one of those who doesn't think TN is a red state, at least not now (without the voting machines that is). If you can get a paper count in 08 maybe we'll find out how right I am.

[Fly by night]

5. Tennessee is not a red state -- it's an Orange state ...

... as in devoted to overcoming and preventing election fraud just as our orange-clad role models in the Ukraine did back in 2004.

I agree that TN is much more likely to be blue than rad -- and very likely to have had election fraud play a role in the "redding" of our state in the past two decades. Some of our largest cities have voted on push-button electronic machines for some time, and with 93 of our 95 counties now voting on paperless DREs, we are over-ripe for the plucking ....

Our biggest concern is that the very people who got us into this mess are expected to get us out of it. As a result, one off-shoot of this DRE scandal may be that we will finally go to electing our constitutional offices in the state (like our Secretary of State, who is now appointed by our legislature -- and has been in office for almost 15 years) to allow us to clean house as we obviously need to right now.

[OneBlueSky]

4. does anyone know how many states will be voting electronically this year? . . .

I'm just wondering which states' systems are still going to be vulnerable to manipulated vote counts in November . . . I'm guessing it's a lot . . .

[Fly by night]

6. Go to this web-site and find out

Go to www.verifiedvoting.org and you can get a state-by-state breakdown of how our votes are being cast and counted now. There are still between 12-17 states (including Tennessee) who are considered at high risk for electronic election fraud.

You should also visit the Common Cause web-site and go to their election reform tab. They are doing some state-by-state work that you may be interested in.

Likewise, check out www.voteraction.org for even more state-level action.

[Fly by night]

7. This may be a better link to the editorial

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080201/OPINION01/802010427/1008

From there, you can also access all of the other articles that appeared on the op-ed page. Again, we are most pleased.

[Wilms]

8. "The Nashville Tennesseen endorses paper ballots" ???

I hadn't realized Paper Ballots was running.

Pleased to hear it. It gets my vote, unless levers or hand counts are in the race.

No matter who wins, though, I hope Audits are picked as a running mate.

:D

[Fly by night]

9. Yes, audits are part of the TN Voter Confidence Act

Implementing them will be a challenge with officials who have gotten used to out-sourcing most of their work to voting machine vendors. But we'll work that out (or replace a lot of county election officials).