Tag: Shelby County Election Commission

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Election 2023: MATA Offers Free Rides To The Polls

Credit: MATA via Facebook

The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) and the Shelby County Election Commission will be offering free bus rides to voters on Friday, September 29th.

This service is also available prior to the deadline for early voting, which is Saturday, September 30th.

MATA said this is an effort to “boost voter awareness” and to “ensure accessibility by eliminating transportation barriers.”

Gary Rosenfeld, CEO of MATA, said election cycles are “critical” and they provide the opportunity for everyone’s voice to be heard.

“We believe that transportation should never be a barrier to voting and our Roll to the Polls partnership is designed to empower individuals to exercise their fundamental right to vote,” said Rosenfeld.

According to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) , President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order requiring agencies of the federal government to promote voter registration and participation.  

The FTA said it acknowledges the role that public transportation plays in the lives of Americans, including access to voting.

“Transit providers across the country are distinctly positioned to reduce some of the obstacles Americans face to exercising their sacred, fundamental right to vote,” said the FTA in a statement.

MATA also said they will provide rides to the polls on a fixed route, once early voting winds down.

Prior to this announcement, MATA hosted a “Roll to the Polls” block party on Tuesday, September 12th at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, one of the early voting polling locations.

“We are grateful to MATA for this partnership which encourages residents to Be Voter Ready with equitable access to voting and voter information,” said Linda Phillips, Shelby County Election Commission Administrator of Elections.

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County Commission Report

Election Commission head Mark Luttrell asked for permission to ditch old voting machines. (Photo: Mark H. Luttrell | Facebook)

Each of the major legislative bodies operating in Shelby County presents challenges to its members, to the various publics that wish to influence it, and to the matrices of other governmental bodies that it must coexist with.

Take the Shelby County Commission meeting of Monday, May 15th, a six-and-a-half-hour affair. The commission opened up its Monday session with an agenda of 21 “consent agenda” items and an additional nine “regular” items. In theory, the consent agenda items are matters whose import has been sufficiently chewed over in committee as to be generally acceptable already, whereas the regular items must be tackled anew.

It doesn’t work out that way. On Monday, a clear majority of items on the commission’s consent agenda were singled out for additional discussion by one or more — a fact clearly indicating that consent had not been reached. Most of these items involved the approval of public grants to this or that person or body to achieve some public purpose.

Commissioner Britney Thornton and, to a different degree, Commissioner Henri Brooks have chosen on a weekly basis to focus on the demographic distribution of these grants, wanting to know if a sufficient number of minority firms were invited to participate in the bidding for these projects. Thornton’s summing up of Monday’ results — “a flat zero” of ultimate participation by minorities.

This is one leitmotif of a typical commission meeting. Another is the dependable insistence of Commissioner Edmund Ford Jr.that commissioners — the “electeds” of county government — must be vigilant in preventing the “appointeds” of Mayor Lee Harris’ administration from usurping commission prerogatives.

At one point, Ford asked a yes-or-no question of administration budget director Michael Thompson, insisting, “Do not give an essay answer. I will cut you off and bust you out.” Mick Wright, one of four Republican commissioners on the 13-member body, challenged the decorum of that.

Wright and Ford bumped heads again on Wright’s proposal to route $3.5 million into needed upgrades for Regional One. Ford successfully insisted the money be spread around among the 13 commission districts for members’ preferred projects.

Ford was also instrumental in deferring action on Mayor Harris’ proposal to raise the county wheel tax to finance work on Regional One as well as two new schools.

The bottom line is that work on an ambitious 2024 budget has been remanded into the future with a target date in mind of June 30th, the end of the current fiscal year.

With surprising unanimity, the commission approved a $3.39 tax rate, as well as a desire to establish a county civilian law-enforcement review board like those now operating in Memphis and Nashville city governments. The commission also gave conditional approval to the Election Commission’s wish to dispose of “useless” old voting machines, so long as significant information from them was retained. Commissioners also approved a $2.7 million budget item providing medical backup resources for the county specialty courts dealing with veterans, mental health, and drug issues. And it readies for future voting a matching proposal to provide psychiatric rehabilitation for prisoners deemed incompetent for trial.

Overall, the import of Monday’s commission meeting was that a lot of cans got kicked down the road. More of this anon.

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Mayoral Residency: What’s at Stake

Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins (Photo: Memphis Bar Association | Facebook)

Between the 18th of this month, a Thursday, and the 22nd, a Monday, there will fall one business day and a weekend. Within that brief period, the political history of Memphis for at least four years — and maybe longer — could well be determined.

The 22nd is the first date on which candidate petitions for the October 5th city election will be made available by the Shelby County Election Commission. The 18th, four days prior, shapes up as a day of judgment for candidate eligibility. On that date, the long-festering issue of residency requirements for mayor will be resolved, one way or the other, in the courtroom of Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins.

So indicated His Honor on Monday. His fateful announcement, made at the close of a hearing on the residency matter, followed an equally eventful one from Memphis city attorney Jennifer Sink, rendered in Jenkins’ courtroom by Michael Fletcher, a lawyer for the city. In essence, Sink said via Fletcher that an opinion she had requested weeks ago from attorney Robert Meyers reflected city policy, reversing a statement she made last month in which she declined to go that far.

The Meyers opinion had cited language in an 1895 city charter mandating a prior residency in Memphis for a period of five years for candidates for mayor. That opinion, published on the Shelby County Commission website, generated significant turmoil, including litigation from two announced candidates — Sheriff Floyd Bonner and NAACP president Van Turner — challenging such a mandate.

Bonner and Turner, whose suits were later combined, insist that Memphis voters approved a superseding referendum in 1996 that did away with a prior-residency requirement for both mayoral candidates and candidates for the city council, and that several city elections had been held since under the new standard. (Indeed, several current members of the council could not have passed a five-year requirement for prior residency.)

As for Sink’s apparent change of mind, lawyers for the litigants point out that the city doesn’t administer elections; the Election Commission does, which had meanwhile dropped Meyers’ opinion from its website.

In danger of invalidation, Bonner and Turner, who until recently lived just outside the city, are joined by former Mayor Willie Herenton, a sometime resident of Collierville in recent years. Ironically, all three were basically tied for the lead in the only mayoral poll made public so far.

One clear beneficiary of their ouster (though he has steered clear of the controversy) would be Downtown Memphis Commission CEO Paul Young, who by a wide margin would lead the rest of the declared field in fundraising. Two other mayoral hopefuls, businessman J.W. Gibson and School Board member Michelle McKissack, have declared themselves in favor of the Meyers opinion.

In the wake of Monday’s events, Bonner issued a ringing statement which said in part: “The voters of Memphis voted in 1996 to do away with a dated residency requirement from the 1800s, and we are fighting to make sure the people’s voice is heard.” Turner also responded: “It is unfortunate that some group of insiders are trying to decide the election instead of letting the will of the voters play out. … [W]e will continue to prepare for our day in Court on May 18, and we will continue to campaign on the issues and not the distractions.”

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Long Stalemate Ends on New Voting Machines

Sohelia Kail and Dan Michael (Photo: Jackson Baker)

At long last, after at least two years of steady contentiousness between the County Commission and the Shelby County Election Commission, a resolution may have been reached on the matter of what kind of voting method should replace the currently used outmoded machines.

But that auxiliary verb “may” is necessary. At several points during three-and-a-half hours of intense disagreements and outright verbal combat, various commissioners would invoke the prospect of reconsideration — that parliamentary device which allows voters for a majority position to call for a revote later on.

Though a flurry of secondary issues became part of the argument, the essential debate at Monday’s commission meeting was between proponents of hand-marked paper ballots and defenders of the Election Commission’s preference for electronic ballot-marking devices.

The commission had voted twice previously in favor of hand-marked paper ballots and had specifically rejected ballot-marking devices, but the resolution before the body on Monday called for almost $6 million to purchase ballot-marking machines from the Election Systems & Software company. It also allowed for a “compromise” procedure whereby voters could either ask for paper ballots or use the ballot-marking machines. Partisans of hand-marked paper ballots tended to be skeptical regarding the bona fides of that provision.

At the end, in any event, the resolution would pass, though at various intervals a series of amendments that would have transformed it one way or another were introduced and then withdrawn. The final version targeted November as the changeover date, though Election Administrator Linda Phillips and Election Commission chairman Mark Luttrell had asked for action before the August county election on grounds that the county’s existing machines were on their last legs.

At one point, the commission gave serious consideration to a motion from Commissioner Van Turner to rebid the entire voting-machine contract with a new RFP (request for proposal) but backed away from it — perhaps in recognition that back-and-forths on the issue and failure to agree in the past had created an atmosphere of mutual intractability.

Disagreement on voting methods had traditionally been on party-line grounds, with the commission’s Democrats favoring hand-marked paper ballots and Republicans aligning themselves with the Election Commission’s preferences, but the acceptance by two Democrats, commission chair Willie Brooks and Michael Whaley, of the proffered compromise agreement finally broke the stalemate. Both Brooks and Whaley would complain on Monday that they had been the targets of telephone threats for their change of mind.

• At a press conference a week before last, Tarik Sugarmon, candidate for Juvenile Court judge, went on record in favor of the establishment of a second elected judge for the court. A proposal to do just that gained a positive vote by the County Commission back in 2006, but a state Appeals Court later overruled the action on separation-of-powers grounds.

The court decision specifically ruled invalid a state law that the former commission had relied on, but Sugarmon maintains that the Shelby County charter permits the creation of a second judgeship.

Incumbent Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael had not been heard from on the issue until Sunday, when he was asked about it at judicial candidate David Pool’s annual crawdad boil event.

Michael’s verdict? The Appeals Court’s rejection of a second judgeship still stands, but “If you’re going to do something like that, you wouldn’t need two judges, you’d need 15.” (The latter number approximates the number of “referees” appointed to help adjudge cases under the current Juvenile Court system.)

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Showdown Monday on Voting Machines

From left: Steve Mulroy, Eddie Jones, Erika Sugarmon, Sarah Wilkerson Freeman. (Photo by Jackson Baker)

Proponents of hand-marked paper ballots held a press conference Friday on the eve of Monday’s Shelby County Commission meeting, where a vote is scheduled to approve or reject a rival system employing ballot-marking devices.

The ballot-marking devices are being insisted on by a majority on the Shelby County Election Commission, which pleads that timeliness demands a favorable vote. If the County Commission provides one, the county would spend $5.8 million on new machines supplied by Election Systems & Software, LLC (ES&S) and, says the Election Commission, the ballot-marking devices would be ready in time for the August county election. 

Opposing such a vote at Friday’s press conference (held at Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church) were two active County Commissioners, one former County Commissioner, one County Commissioner-elect, and a member of the Democratic Party’s state committee.

Steve Mulroy, a County Commissioner from 2006 to 2014 and currently a candidate for District Attorney General, characterized the issue to be voted on Monday as follows:  “We are getting ready …to quite possibly decide what election and voting system we’re going to use for the next 20 years. There is a chance that we’ll be making the wrong decision that we will be spending $6 million on an overpriced, glitch-vulnerable, hackable, less secure voting system that will erode further the public’s already low confidence in the integrity of our elections, when there is a much more secure, less expensive, low-tech solution, easily available, that the County Commission has already repeatedly said by resolution they’re in favor of.”

He added that if the ballot-marking machines are approved, “rather than using a 10-cent pen to mark the ballot, we have to use a $5,000 ballot marking device which is touchscreen and computerized and which election experts say can be hacked or is prone to glitches. So we are paying $4 million more for a less secure system. We are here today because the Election Commission has taken yet another run at trying to force the County Commission to fund this overpriced, less secure system.”

As Mulroy indicated, the County Commission has voted repeatedly to use hand-marked paper ballots for the badly needed new machines rather than the ES&S devices. Concurring with Mulroy’s statements and speaking remotely by phone, Commissioner Van Turner said, “The commission has spoken to this issue … I will again be supporting having paper ballots be the primary voting mode in Shelby County.” 

Commissioner Eddie Jones, calling the Election Commission’s action an example of Election Coordinator Linda Phillips’ “Jedi mind tricks,” said of the Election Commission majority, “These are appointed people trying to step beyond their legal authority and go beyond us.”

Although Mulroy had noted, correctly, that the County Commission is majority-Democratic and the Election Commission majority- Republican, County Commissioner-elect Erika Sugarmon declared, “This is a non-partisan issue. Republicans, Democrats, and libertarians have been going to the commissions. We’ve been going to the Election Commission, and the Shelby County Commission, voicing our concerns, and stating our desire to have hand-marked paper ballots. We want hand-marked paper ballots like they have in Knox County.” Sugarmon added, “Ballot-marking devices also are a way to suppress the voters rights. For example, in disadvantaged, marginalized, minoritized, and working class communities, they  cause long lines.”

Sarah Wilkerson Freeman, a member of the Democratic state committee, said the Election Commission’s attempt to force an approval of ballot-marking devices was “troubling, very, very troubling, because it is voters who put the County Commission in, and they have repeatedly said ‘no’ to these proposals from the Election Commission. And what is going on is that the administrator is dragging her heels and dragging our heels until the whole system becomes increasingly broken and broken and broken.”

Mulroy said that the County Commission, on Monday, could not only reject the Election Commission’s desire for ballot-marking devices, it could go ahead and vote for hand-marked paper ballots.  “The state of the law is we have a [Chancery] Court ruling that has not been overturned, [and] the County Commission can go forward, if it wants to. The Election Commission has appealed the Chancery ruling, but the pendency of the appeal does not prevent the county commission from going forward.”

He recommended “that people call their county commissioners between now and Monday, tell them that want to spend less money and be more secure.”

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

How Did the Name “Fullilove” Get on the Primary Ballot?

Brent Taylor (Credit: Jackson Baker)

A controversy has arisen regarding the correct name that should have been used for the candidacy of Janeen Gordon on the May 3rd county Democratic primary ballot.

Gordon, who finished ahead in the primary,  was listed on the final ballot as Janeen Fullilove Gordon, with the middle name being that of her mother, Janis Fullilove, who was retiring at the time from the position of Juvenile Court Clerk, which Gordon sought.

Stephanie Gatewood, third-place finisher in that race, is now formally challenging Gordon’s win on the basis that “Fullilove” was a misleading part of the ballot name, contending that it was never part of Gordon’s actual legal name. 

Gordon herself has maintained that the name “Fullilove” has often been used to designate her, and that she at one time was called “L’il Fullilove.”

It was at the February 28th meeting of the Shelby County Election Commission that several audience members addressed an agenda item regarding the pending certification of the then-forthcoming ballot. It was on that occasion that activist Theryn Bond spoke up on behalf of candidate Gordon, whose campaign she managed, with the aim, she said, of making sure that the name “Fullilove” was included as part of the candidate’s ballot name.

Brent Taylor, now the Republican nominee for the state Senate but then still serving as chairman of the Election Commission, responded at the time that the candidate’s name would go on the ballot exactly as she had used it on her application for candidacy. Reminded of that this week, he said that he personally had not checked the accuracy of the name but assumed that someone on the commission staff had.

Taylor, who was reached while on a family trip out of state, stopped to forward an Excel copy of the candidate names received by the Election Commission at the February 28th meeting. On it, Gordon’s name is listed merely as “Janeen Gordon.”

The primary election ballots were certified by the Election Commission that night, on February 28th, and the ballot certified then contains the name “Janeen Fullilove-Gordon.”

Marcus Mitchell, the fourth-place finisher in the Juvenile Court Clerk’s race, has joined with Gatewood in her challenge. Reginald Milton, who finished as runner-up to Gordon, has said he would not join the challenge, nor would he seek to impede it.

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Chancellor Rules Against EC in Round One of Voting-Machine Dispute

Chancellor Gadson W. Perry

A Shelby County court has denied the request of the Shelby County Election Commission to force the Shelby County Commission to fund its call for the purchase of ES&S electronic voting machines to replace the county’s existing election machinery.

Both bodies agree that the old voting machines must be replaced, but have disagreed on what should replace them, with the county commission maintaining that, as the entity empowered to pay for and to “adopt” the replacement devices, its twice-expressed official preference for devices employing paper ballots should prevail over the Election Commission’s choice of the $5.4 million ES&S ballot-marking devices, as recommended by Election Administrator Linda Phillips.

After a hearing Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Gadson W. Perry denied the Election Commission’s petition for a writ of mandamus, which would have forced the issue in the EC’s favor. The judge cited contradictions in specific Tennessee statutes, with one of the several laws discussed in the hearing concretely giving the EC the right to select election machinery, while another, just as firmly, supported the county commission’s contention that its control of funding precluded a “duty” to rubber-stamp the EC’s choice.

The bottom line, said Perry in denying the writ of mandamus, is that the warring statutes in effect endowed the differing parties with a “push-pull” relationship on the voting-machine matter, with an implicit imperative to work out some agreement between themselves.

Allan Wade, attorney for the Election Commission, promptly indicated he would appeal the ruling to “higher authority,” presumably to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. Since the request for the mandamus writ was but one of several legal remedies being pursued by the EC, Wade followed protocol in asking Chancellor Perry’s permission to appeal, which was promptly granted.

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SCEC To Sue County Commission Over Voting Machine Turndown

CREDIT: JB

JB

Election Administrator Linda Phillips

In a memorable showdown last year between Shelby County Election Administrator Linda Phillips and the Shelby County Commission, the possibility of litigation between the Shelby County Election Commission and the Shelby County Commission over the purchase of new voting machines was first floated.

County Commissioner Van Turner, speaking for a majority of the commision favoring equipment using paper ballots, informed Phillips, who works in concert with the Election Commission, that the county commission, as the body responsible for authorizing purchase of new machines, could choose not to fund the ballot-marking devices she had expressed a preference for.

“And we could sue you,” Phillips responded.

On Tuesday the SCEC board, in emergency meeting, followed through on Phillips’ threat, voting to file suit to compel the county commission to purchase ballot-marking devices marketed by the ES&S Company and approved by the SCEC in a 4-1 vote last year.

The county commission subsequently rejected a resolution to purchase the ballot-marking devices, pointing out that it had voted twice previously that it preferred and wished to pay for paper-ballot devices (which the commission said enabled greater election transparency and happened also to have a lower price tag. The SCEC subsequently authorized, from its available funds, the purchase of a limited number of he ES&S machines for last fall’s runoff election in Collierville.

But Tuesday’s SCEC action ups the ante on the dispute. A statement issued by the Election Commission after its decision to sue states, “The law is quite clear that it is solely the responsibility of SCEC to select voting equipment and that the county commission is legally bound to fund the annual operations of SCEC and for purchasing the necessary equipment for SCEC to conduct elections.”

But the county commission has noted that its sole responsibility for funding such purchases entitles it and only it to approve such funding. And complicating the SCEC statement of Tuesday is the fact that, as Election Commissioner Brent Taylor had indicated last year, the SCEC apparently had considered but rejected the option of specifying basic guidelines but leaving a choice of vendors to the county commission.

“I am confused as to why the county commission would pass an irrelevant ballot resolution and deny funding for which it is legally responsible after the majority of Election Commissioners voted to purchase ballot marking devices,“ Phillips said in the SCEC statement indicating its intention to sue.

Reginald Milton, a member of the county commission majority that expressed its preference for paper-ballot devices, commented in response: “Ms. Phillips mentions ‘confusion.’ As the prolonged disputes over the recent presidential election made obvious, transparency and the ability to furnish accurate, checkable records of voters’ choices, thereby eliminating potential confusion, are, along with lower costs, the chief advantages for paper-ballot devices. That was the county commission’s considered judgment and is hardly irrelevant.”

Commissioner Turner said, “We have received overwhelming support for hand-marked paper ballots with ballot marking devices as the alternative. … It’s unfortunate that we could not work this out with the Election Commission. We offered a fair compromise, but SCEC would rather take us to court and spend taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary lawsuit. This lawsuit and cause of action is not in the best interest of the citizens of Shelby County but rather is a power trip by the Election Commission which will waste precious time and money.”

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Dispute Over Election Machines Remains Unsettled

CREDIT: JB

The tug-of-war between Shelby County Election Administrator Linda Phillips and the adherents of paper-ballot voting over the purchase of new election machines continues apace.

The most recent development, detailed in a November 18th Flyer article, involved the administrator’s purchase of three new ballot-marking devices for the ongoing runoff elections in Collierville.

The machines are manufactured by the ES&S Company and are of a type previously preferred by a 4-1 vote of the Shelby County Election Commission but rejected for funding by the Shelby County Commision, which, in the interests of transparency, had established its own preference for handmarked paper-ballot devices in several prior votes.

The funding source for the three machines had been — publicly, at least — something of a mystery. According to SCEC sources, the machines were paid for by the office of the Secretary of State in Nashville

The purchase of the machines had been revealed last week in a formal SCEC press release, which contended that there had been no alternative to acquiring them, inasmuch as the old machines used by Collierville in the city’s first round of elections earlier this month were tied up, pending certification this week of the November 3rd results.

JB

Election Commissioner Bennie Smith

Early voting for Collierville’s mandatory runoff period had meanwhile been scheduled to begin on Wednesday of last week.

Controversies remain: One of the reasons for the  county commission’s rejection of the SCEC’s preference for the ES&S machines (which had been selected over two other bidders) had to do with the commission’s aforementioned preference for devices enabling the use of paper ballots.
But another reason had been the county commission’s objection to additional costs for accessories added by the administrator’s office to the bids received from ES&S and two rival bidders.

At its meeting of October 23rd, the SCEC board voted to re-submit its request for county commission funding of the ES&S machines, minus the objected-to accessories. That expenditure would be something like $3.9 million, as against the sum of $5,815,405 requested beforehand.

But, said Brent Taylor and Frank Uhlhorn, two members of the three-member SCEC Republican majority, this “skinny” version of the prior request would not include money for accessories needed to facilitate the option of paper-ballot voting for those who wanted it. As part of its selection process, the SCEC board had previously voted to provide the option, and its deletion now further imperils the prospects of county commission approval.

In the meantime, Election Commission Democratic member Bennie Smith has cried foul about the commission’s promised provision for paper-ballot voting during the Collierville runoffs.

Smith and members of his family are residents of Collierville and recently went to vote in one of the three available voting locations, trusting, said Smith, to this statement in the SCEC press release: “There will be a ballot-on-demand printer capable of printing ballots on-demand for those who want to use hand marked paper ballots. If a voter would prefer to vote on paper, that ballot will be printed on the spot.”

Instead of being offered that option, though, Smith said he and his family members were not informed of its availability and were able to vote by paper ballot only upon having to insist on it.

Complaining about this to Phillips, Smith received an email containing the following statement: “We aren’t offering the paper ballot option because at this moment it isn’t an option going forward. This was discussed in the October 23rd SCEC meeting; when the decision was made to go forward with the skinny resolution, it also eliminated the paper ballot option since the accessories included the BOD printers necessary to offer that option in Early Voting.”

The circumstances behind this standoff are either complicated or simple, depending one one’s perspective, but the bottom line is that the twain are nowhere close to meeting just yet.

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Election Commission “End-Run”: Phillips Announces Purchase of ES&S Machines for Collierville Election

It may be too late in the election year for an October surprise (i.e., some unexpected development that stands the pending political situation on its head), but the calendar clearly allows for a November surprise, and, courtesy of the Shelby County Election Commission, we have one.

Linda Phillips

The SCEC, having been foiled last month in its efforts to get County Commission funding for new ballot-marking election devices from the ES&S Company, has done what one critic calls “an end-run” around the commission, buying three of the ES&S devices using its own funds.

In declining to purchase the ES&S ballot-marking devices, the County Commission had made its preferences clear in that it favored devices equipped for hand-marked paper ballots.

In a matter-of-fact press release issued Monday, the Election Commission administrator’s office attempted to make the case that it had no choice but to purchase the new machines, inasmuch as the old machines used by Collierville in the city’s first round of elections earlier this month were tied up, pending certification on November 23rd of the November 3rd results.

Collierville requires runoff elections in cases where candidates don’t receive majorities originally, and two seats on the city’s Board of Aldermen will have to be resolved that way, with early voting for the runoffs beginning on Wednesday of this week.

“We simply had no choice but to purchase three of the machines to get us through Collierville’s early voting period,” Election Administrator Linda Phillips said in the news release, pointing out that the Election Commission had previously voted 4-1 in favor of the ES&S ballot-marking devices before encountering resistance from the County Commission.

The SCEC press release goes on to say that “[b]y Election Day for the runoff, which will be held December 8th, the older machines voters have been using for years, will be available.”

And further: “The ballot-marking devices selected by the commissioners are used in conjunction with scanners that are also capable of scanning voter-marked paper ballots. There will be a ballot-on-demand printer capable of printing ballots on demand for those who want to use hand-marked paper ballots.

“If a voter would prefer to vote on paper that ballot will be printed on the spot.”

Steve Mulroy, a University of Memphis law professor and former county commissioner, is a prominent local advocate of the paper-marked-ballot system of voting, and he expressed skepticism about the election administrator’s decision to purchase the three new machines and her rationale for doing do, which he termed an “excuse.”

Mulroy observed: “Note they also said that they would have a ballot-on-demand printer available during early voting, so that anyone who wanted to just vote by a hand-marked paper ballot could do so.

“Given that, why could they not just go with the ballot-on-demand printer for early voting? They were already going to have one. That would’ve sufficed by itself. It would cost less money. It would not require using the SCEC slush fund to buy voting machines that the local funding body has by resolution rejected three times — in January, April, and October.

“The answer,” said Mulroy, “may be that they are determined to sneak in their ballot-marking devices by hook or by crook.”

He said the purchase was “a clever attempt to do an end-run around the County Commission’s authority, starting a process of doing BMDs by dribs and drabs, to the point that they will be able to say to you later on, ‘Hey, we already have a number of these things anyway. You might as well just go ahead and approve what we originally suggested, because otherwise these machines won’t be compatible.'”

Suggesting there were other alternatives available, Mulroy said, “I’m also wondering just how large a slush fund SCEC has that it can buy multiple pieces of expensive equipment without going through the normal funding process?”

Members of the County Commission are sure to have similar questions in mind and will no doubt be ready to express them when the commission meets in committee sessions on Wednesday.