The citizen-advocacy group Common Cause has enlisted an expert on voting machines to make its case in a lawsuit to force Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett to switch to paper ballots by the 2010 elections.
In new court documents, Common Cause introduces an affidavit from University of Iowa computer science professor Douglas Jones to try to undercut Hargett’s arguments against abandoning the state’s touch-screen voting machines.
“This case involves a threat to the sanctity of the vote in Tennessee,” Common Cause says in the new court papers.
In Tennessee, 93 of 95 counties use touch-screen machines. Election reform activists criticize this system because it lacks a paper trail, making it impossible to verify results.
A year ago, the legislature enacted the Voter Confidence Act requiring a new system by 2010 — paper ballots to be marked by voters and then read by optical scanners. That would allow for recounts and audits of the actual tallies.
But election officials have argued that 2010 would be too soon to make a smooth transition. The law requires optical-scan machines to meet "the applicable voluntary voting systems guidelines," which Hargett interprets as 2005 federal standards. But at last report, there were no such machines yet.
"I really want to make this work, but I can't provide counties with equipment that doesn't exist," Hargett has said.
Common Cause’s lawsuit asks Davidson County Chancellor Russell Perkins to decide whether Hargett's interpretation of the law is correct. Common Cause argues that 2002 standards satisfy the requirements for the new machines.
In his affidavit, Jones recommends that Tennessee make the switch immediately by buying machines meeting 2002 standards. He says the state can upgrade those machines to meet new standards.
Jones says voters using the new system “have a significantly higher likelihood of having their votes counted and counted as intended” than voters using touch-screen machines.
Common Cause asks Perkins to order Hargett to begin implementing the Voter Confidence Act.
A hearing on the issue has been set for Nov. 5.