Citizens have overwhelmingly voiced that they want voting administrators “to be sure people’s votes are counted as tabulated and that all vulnerabilities that threaten their vote be removed.”  They want technology in the voting process reduced and strongly desire SECURITY over CONVENIENCE when it comes to their vote.

We believe Tennessee should:

Authenticate the voter.  Authenticate the ballot.  Authenticate the count.

That can be done by:

• Lessening the technology throughout the voting process.
• Retire ballot marking devices (BMDs) because the ballots they produce have encrypted QR/Bar codes. They’re not voter verifiable.
• BMDs are also hackable.
• Remove direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines because they don’t produce a paper ballot separate from the machine.
• Empower an election crime division for the state with heavy prison sentences for all who commit voting fraud.
• Reduce the early voting season but make voting day a holiday.
• Move to hand-marked, high-security paper ballots with randomized precinct/vote numbers for citizens to track their ballot.
• Pursue aggressive voter roll clean-up.
• Lock voter rolls and move the registration process totally offline during early/election day voting.
• Voter ID is an absolute… and is NOT voter suppression.
• Return to precinct voting (versus voting centers) to remove the internet connectivity that’s needed for voting centers.
• ACCURACY is more important than CONVENIENCE!
• Live stream precinct voting in a way that protects voter privacy, but lets citizens see precinct activity.
• Currency-grade ballot scanning authentication.
• Optimum: Count ballots by hand in precincts immediately post-election.  Interim: Optical scanners/tabulators with guardrails.
• Conduct a mandatory post-election audit and live stream the counting of ballots.
• Post ballots and key poll officer reports online next day for public access:  This could become “The People’s Audit.”
• Comprehensive training for poll workers and poll watchers.
• No vendor can be used as the sole voting system entity that supplies, generates, scans, counts and tallies all ballots in a county.  

Additionally, all electronic machines in the county’s voting system must undergo:

• A Security Risk Evaluation instead of a simple recertification (as the State Election Commission has pledged to do which relies on the Election Assistance Commission [EAC] and the Voting Security Testing Labs [VSTL], both of which are untrustworthy).  We’ve spelled out a process for this assessment that would involve a transparent, citizen committee of cybersecurity/IT/process control experts.

Our recommended voting system model:

• Front door:  Cleaner, protected voter rolls.
• Front door:  No voting centers, no online check-in, no internet connectivity.
• Paper ballots:  Hand-marked, random ID’d, watermarked, paper, no BMDs/DREs.
• Count:  Hand-counted or a secure, separate vendor tabulator to read hand marks on paper ballots.
• Back door:  First Audit:  Videotaped hand count immediately post-election in precincts.
• Back door:  The People’s Audit:  Scanned ballots, reports posted online for citizens to audit.
• Back door:  Operational Audit to evaluate the performance of all 95 state election commissions.
• Back door:  Chain of custody – For ballots/precincts/county/state totals, physical accountability.

Download Comprehensive Vote Model PDF.