Tennessee
Ballot Security
What Politicians Say
It is one of six states that still use touchscreen voting equipment that election security experts say is fundamentally flawed.
According to the nonpartisan Verified Voting Foundation, more than half of voting machines in Tennessee do not produce a paper record of the vote, the second-highest percentage among US states.
That can cause problems when aging touchscreens aren’t calibrated correctly, causing the machine to mistake what choice the voter actually made and record a different one.
Voters can fix the problem if they notice it, but election security experts recommend either eliminating touchscreens or adding a paper record sort of like a grocery-store receipt that voters can use to confirm their choices.
Under a new law, all voting machines in the state will need to have a voter-verified paper trail by Jan. 1, 2024, although local elections administrations can request an extension of up to two years before implementing that law.
Ease of Voting
Other new laws in Tennessee allow residents of certain independent living facilities to vote by mail using the same procedure for people in nursing homes and bar local governments from experimenting with ranked-choice voting, in which voters put candidates in order of their preference.
According to statistics from University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald, the state’s turnout rate among all people eligible to vote was the fifth lowest in the country in 2020.
Ballot Security
Lawmakers also required that court officials charged with overseeing juries send local elections administrators a list of anyone disqualified from jury duty because they were not a US citizen.
Another new law bars elections officials from accepting private donations to run elections, such as the grants local elections administrators asked for and received from Meta Platforms Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg in 2020.
Read More: Zuckerberg’s Election Aid Spurs GOP Drive in 30 States to Ban It
How Politicians Responded to the 2020 Election
Governor Bill Lee repeatedly declined to say that Biden had won the election, saying that the process should play out, only recognizing him as president after the inauguration.
Attorney General Herbert Slatery III supported the Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to intervene.
US Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty signed a joint statement with US Senator Ted Cruz and others citing “unprecedented allegations” of voter fraud and initially planned to object to electors on Jan. 6, but changed their minds after the attacks on the Capitol.
Six out of Tennessee’s seven Republican US representatives objected to the certification of Biden electors from Arizona and all seven objected to Pennsylvania. Six also signed an amicus brief supporting the Texas lawsuit.