Tag: Voting Machines

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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 Feature

No Rubber Stamp: County Commission Flexes Against Election Commission, Harris

One bottom-line message emerged from Monday’s public meeting of the Shelby County Commission: The commission does not intend to function as a rubber stamp — not for the Election Commission and not for County Mayor Lee Harris.

In a much-anticipated vote on a request for a $5,815,405 purchase of voting machinery from the ES&S Company, the momentum of a tense, drama-filled debate tilted against the buy when county commission Chairman Eddie Jones pointedly reminded Election Commissioner Brent Taylor, who was making the pitch, that the county commission had put itself on record, not for ballot-marking machines of the sort marketed by ES&S but for hand-marked voting devices.

Jones was immediately backed up by Commissioner Tami Sawyer, and the commission’s vote, in short order, was 6 ayes, 5 nays, and 2 abstentions — leaving the measure one vote short of the necessary seven. During the debate, Commissioner Willie Brooks had reminded Taylor of his intriguing statement he had made to the Flyer last March: “The process is backwards,” Taylor said then. “The Election Commission should not have initiated the RFP and passed the decision about funding on to the county commission. What we [the Election Commission members] should have done is come to some broad general decision about the kind of machines we wanted and then let the county commission issue an RFP [request for proposal], make the choice, and then vote on the funding.”

Soon came another demonstration point, led by Edmund Ford, who wanted to establish commission authority over what he deemed a mayoral overreach: a $1 million expenditure to two local PR agencies to produce an ad promoting face masks as a prophylactic against COVID-19. The ad was commissioned by Harris in August under statutory emergency powers assumed to be his under the federal Cares Act. But Ford insisted that the statute did not give the county mayor authority without commission consent to contract for a sum larger than $50,000. Commissioner Van Turner, who had wanted to withdraw the resolution, said unhappily after a vote of 7 nays and 3 abstentions against it, that the matter had been a “political show,” a case of “wanting to stick it to the mayor.”

Early voting for the November 3rd election begins October 14th and runs through October 29th at the following 26 locations; 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday.

• Abundant Grace Fellowship Church, 1574 E. Shelby Dr., Memphis, 38116

• Agricenter International, 7777 Walnut Grove Rd., Memphis, 38120

• Mississippi Blvd. Church Family Life Center, 70 N. Bellevue Blvd., Memphis, 38104

• New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, 7786 Poplar Pike, Germantown, 38138 

• Arlington Safe Room, 11842 Otto Ln.,  Arlington, 38002

• Anointed Temple of Praise, 3939 Riverdale Rd., Memphis, 38115

• Baker Community Center, 7942 Church Rd., Millington, 38053

• Berclair Church of Christ, 4536 Summer Ave., Memphis, 38122

• Briarwood Church, 1900 N. Germantown Pkwy., Memphis, 38016

• Collierville Church of Christ, 575 Shelton Dr., Collierville, 38017

• Compassion Church, 3505 S. Houston Levee Rd., Germantown, 38139

• Dave Wells Community Center, 915 Chelsea Ave., Memphis, 38107

• Glenview Community Center, 1141 S. Barksdale St., Memphis, 38114

• Greater Lewis Street Baptist Church, SE Corner of Poplar and E. Parkway N., Memphis, 38104

• Greater Middle Baptist Church, 4982 Knight Arnold Rd., Memphis, 38118

• Harmony Church, 6740 St. Elmo Rd.,  Bartlett, 38135

• Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, 1234 Pisgah Rd., Cordova, 38016

• Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 60 S. Parkway E., Memphis, 38106

• Raleigh United Methodist Church, 3295 Powers Rd., Memphis, 38128

• Riverside Missionary Baptist Church, 3560 S. Third St., Memphis, 38109

• Shelby County Election Commission, James Meredith Bldg., 157 Poplar Ave., Memphis, 38103

• Second Baptist Church, 4680 Walnut Grove Blvd., Memphis, 38117

• Solomon Temple MB Church, 1460 Winchester Rd., Memphis, 38116

• The Pursuit of God Church (Bellevue Frayser,) 3759 N. Watkins, Memphis, 38127

• White Station Church of Christ, 1106 Colonial Road, Memphis, 38117

• The Refuge Church, 9817 Huff N Puff Rd., Lakeland, 38002

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Election Commission: No New Voting Equipment for This Year

Considering all the delays that have occurred in the drawn-out and contentious process of acquiring a new election system for Shelby County, this will not be the most surprising news: There will be no new devices — whether of the ballot-marking sort or of the hand-marked variety — for any county elections this year.

Word from the Election Commission is that, for several reasons, the federal/state primaries and the county general election scheduled for August will be performed on the county’s existing and outmoded machinery, and the same goes for the November election.

One of the reasons for the postponement, according to an EC source familiar with the thinking in the office of Election Administrator Linda Phillips, is uncertainty, at least in her mind, over the availability of funds allocated by the Shelby County Commission. Funding for a new election system was allocated last year by the county commission for the purchase of a new election system in the current fiscal year, but the money has not yet been appropriated.

Jackson Baker

Election Commissioner Linda Phillips

Phillips is said to believe that the funding process for new machines has been shifted to the coming fiscal year, 2020-21, but county commissioners involved in the ongoing process of determining the new budget said that was not the case. The administrator has told election commission members that no voting on any new system will occur until 2022 but that the state has committed to providing new scanners to accommodate the demands of increased mail-in voting this year.

There is still an element of suspense regarding the nature of the new election system, whenever it comes to be. The election commission recently accepted Phillips’ recommendation for the purchase of new ballot-marking devices from the ESS company, but considerable support still exists for hand-marked ballots, both in the community at large and on the majority-Democratic Shelby County Commission, which has the prerogative to appropriate the funding — and, arguably, to designate the type of machinery.

In any case, County Mayor Lee Harris has signed the necessary “intent-to-award” letter to allow the purchasing process to proceed. It remains to be seen when the county commission can cut through the current snags regarding budget calculations to address the matter.

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Politics Politics Feature

Numbed by the Numbers: County Commission Struggles to Agree on Budget

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Separate attempts to produce a budget for Shelby County failed to produce anything resembling a consensus on a marathon meeting day of the County Commission on Monday. Commission Chairman Mark Billingsley said he intends to call a special meeting for next week to see if the process can be expedited.
Jackson Baker

Commission Chairman Mark Billingsley

Billingsley told his fellow commissioners the called meeting would likely be necessary in the interests of reaching agreement on a budget, with the new fiscal year just around the corner on July 1st.

The Memorial Day holiday next week forces an adjustment of the normal schedule, which would mandate a day of committee meetings during the week, preparatory to the next regular commission meeting the week after. The holiday forces the entire sequence to occur a week later, with committee meetings scheduled for June 3rd and the next regular public meeting to be on June 8th.

Hence the need for a called meeting, especially since Monday’s meetings — a special called budget meeting, starting at 11 a.m., followed by the regular Commission meeting at 3 p.m — became embroiled in complications that were still unsnarled when the commission adjourned at nearly midnight.

“We’re getting into another day,” said budget chair Eddie Jones wearily, with the clock moving toward the witching hour and one of the Webinar meeting’s participants, an administration staffer participating from home and having to alternate her contributions with soothing words for a restless two-year-old. “That sounds wonderful,” was the wistful comment of Commissioner Mick Wright on this audible reminder of a domestic life beyond numbers-crunching.

Various formulas have been adduced for dealing with a looming budget deficit that had looked to be as large as $10 million even before the effects of the coronavirus crisis pushed things even further into fiscal crisis.

In mid-April, County Mayor Lee Harris had proposed a $1.4 billion “lean and balanced” budget, with $13.6 million in specified cuts offset by a $16.50 raise in the county’s motor vehicle registration tax, a.k.a. the wheel tax. A majority of commissioners could not be found to agree, and alternative budget proposals, all with different versions of austerity, have since been floated, one by Commissioner Brandon Morrison, another by budget chair Jones, working more or less in tandem with vice chair Edmund Ford.

Among the issues raised by Monday’s day-long discussion was that of whether, as county Chief Financial Officer Mathilde Crosby contended, the proposals offered by Jones and Ford focused overmuch on cuts in administrative departments, thereby paralleling what has been something of a running feud between Harris and Ford based, as more than a few observers see it, as a potential long-term political rivalry between the two.

Crosby also offered criticism that the Jones-Ford proposals for budget-cutting ignored distinctions between the county’s general fund and various dedicated funds for mandated functions.

Another potential issue is that of the county tax rate, currently pegged at $4.05 per $100 of assessed value. Commissioner Reginald Milton, for one, believes that the rate is set artificially low because of simple mathematical error and that this factor is bound to doom the county to endless future variations of the current budget scramble until the rate is recalculated. The current rate has so far been reaffirmed in two of the three readings required for passage.

The budget issue is predominating over other matters, though the commission did reach an agreement Monday on what had been a controversial proposal by Commissioner Tami Sawyer for an ordinance requiring, on penalty of $50 fine, that residents and visitors wear protective face masks in public areas. Sawyer recast her proposal in the form of a resolution requesting such a requirement by the Health Department but providing for no fine. The resolution passed 8-5 on a party-line vote, with the Commission’s Democrats voting for and the Republicans voting against.

Another matter of consequence that awaits the commission is the matter of new voting machines for Shelby County. The commission has twice voted a preference that the county invest in a system of hand-marked paper ballots in time for the August county general election and federal-state primaries, but the Shelby County Election Commission has approved the recommendation of Election Administrator Linda Phillips that new ballot-marking machines from the ES&S Company be purchased instead.

With the elections approaching, the need for a decision soon increases. The process requires that Harris sign an order authorizing the purchase of a new system, after which the commission must vote for its funding. At issue is whether the commission will approve the Phillips/SCEC request or act according to its own preference for the hand-marked system.

A sizable and well-organized group of local activists is pushing for the latter option, on grounds, among others, that a system of hand-marked ballots would be cheaper, more transparent, and less vulnerable to hacking.

Other, related aspects of the controversy include allegations from the activist ranks of potential conflicts of interest involving Phillips and family members and a concern that purchase of the ES&S machines would involve an implicit need to purchase a new voter-registration system from the same company.

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Election Commission Hears from Public, Will Delay Vote on New Voting Machines

The outlook for proposed new voting machines looks more muddled than ever after a virtual telemeeting of the Shelby County Election Commission (SCEC) Wednesday that was marred by the frequently indistinct audio transmission.

But numerous testimonies from participating citizens were noted, most of them being read into the record from written statements supplied to the SCEC. The great majority of comments were in favor of equipment allowing hand-marked paper ballots, with arguments ranging from cost savings to transparency to an alleged greater safety factor relative to touch-screen alternatives during the coronavirus pandemic.

The roster of citizens calling in or contributing statements ranged far and wide and included sitting public officials and a bevy of well-known activists.

Originally, the five election commissioners were scheduled to vote Wednesday on a recommendation by Election Administrator Linda Phillips of a specific machine vendor, but a vote was postponed to allow the meeting to substitute for a previously promised public comment meeting that had been sidetracked by the onset of the epidemic.

It is taken for granted that Administrator Phillips favors machine-marked voting instruments outfitted so as to allow for a paper trail, but no details on her preference were presented Wednesday.

At the end of the meeting, Commissioner Brent Taylor, one of the three Republican representatives on the five-member commission, moved to postpone any voting until whatever turns out to be the Phillips/staff recommendation can be presented to County Mayor Lee Harris, who can then certify it and call for a vote by the County Commission, which has the responsibility of funding the new machines.

That strategy, which was adopted by the Election Commission, would not directly alter Phillips’ choice, regarded as likely to be endorsed by the SCEC, but it would enable the results of the SCEC-ordered RFP (request for proposal) to be made public, and it would give the County Commission, which had previously voted in favor of hand-marked paper ballots, some means of expressing its collective mind — and possibly its will — on the matter.

As it happened, the County Commission, which was meeting in committee simultaneously with the Election Commission, had on its agenda yet another resolution endorsing hand-cast paper ballots but agreed to send the issue down to its Monday public meeting without a recommendation after hearing of the Election Commission’s action.

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Major Differences of Opinion continue on MATA, New Voting Machines.

Although the Shelby County Commission is relatively bipartisan in its functioning, certainly in comparison to other bodies elected by partisan contest (read: Congress, the Tennessee state legislature), the occasional issue can prompt ideological cleavages to surface.

As circumstances at Monday’s regular public meeting demonstrated, there is a Republican hardcore — consisting of (in rough order of ideological purity) Amber Mills, David Bradford, Brandon Morrison, and Mick Wright. The commission’s fifth Republican, chairman Mark Billingsley, is a de facto centrist, using his position to mediate between factions of all sorts, including those that are party-based.

The current deliberations on whether and by what means Shelby County government should buttress MATA (Memphis Area Transit Authority) provide a case in point. Support for county financing of MATA is strongest among the commission’s city-dwelling Democrats and problematic to the extent that a commissioner’s base is in the suburbs, where Republicans dominate.

Jackson Baker

for voter-marked ballots, shooting video of county commission debate on concept

This is especially the case regarding the debate on the county wheel tax, the $50 annual fee assessed on automobile ownership that has been proposed as the basis, via a new surcharge, for financing the county’s assistance to MATA. The wheel tax, created in 1957 to aid school construction, has always been controversial, especially as, over the years, it was tapped for purposes rather than education. But this latest proposal to add a $20 assessment earmarked for MATA, has really fired up opposition.

The initial test vote, the week before last, topped off at five commissioners in committee; nine votes would be needed to enact a fee increase, and that first preliminary vote of 5 to 4, with 2 abstentions, clearly indicated there would be very little progress toward approval without substantial modifications.

Further negotiation proved possible, however, as Sheriff Floyd Bonner added his voice to those of county Mayor Lee Harris and the various commissioners, and a hook was attached to the original proposal that gave it immediate relevance to the distrustful suburban commissioners. The recent de-annexation of several territories from the city of Memphis left those areas without claim to Memphis Police Department law enforcement. It was obvious that new sheriff’s deputies would be needed in the de-annexed areas and just as obvious that new funding would be needed to pay for them.

Hence the reshaping of the proposed county MATA legislation, earmarking a percentage of the new wheel tax surcharge for the purpose of hiring new deputies. Some version of that concept, with or without specific bifurcation from the wheel tax proper, is currently under discussion both within the commission at large and under the auspices of a new Transportation Ad Hoc Committee created by chairman Billingsley and co-chaired by Commissioners Tami Sawyer and Mick Wright, pillars, respectively, of the Democratic and the Republican base.

Meanwhile, the wheel tax itself is under renewed attack. GOP Commissioner Morrison took the lead with a proposed resolution to subtract an annual $5 from the existing $50 wheel tax, to be offset by eliminating the commission’s $2.6 million annual fund for community enhancement grants. Money to make these grants is distributed equally to each member of the commission and then to individuals and a variety of causes deemed worthy by the commissioners. The ability to assign such lagniappe is especially significant for the Democratic commissioners of the economically underserved inner city. They are correspondingly viewed with something approaching indifference in the Republican suburbs.

Morrison’s proposal was a nonstarter in committee and, when brought to the floor of the regular meeting on Monday, begat a parade of vocal opponents from an audience jam-packed with spokespersons for the numerous programs, agencies, and causes that have benefited from, and in many cases have depended on, the enhancement grants.

So overwhelming was this response that Commissioner Wright posed the obvious response, an amendment, that passed without objection, to strike all reference to grants from the wheel tax reduction proposal.

As popular (and as inevitable) as that action was, it left the resolution without any visible or obvious means for offsetting the potential loss to the budget, which was recalculated on the spot to be $3.6 million annually.

Even so, the now-denatured measure was submitted to a vote, and four commissioners — all members of the aforementioned GOP hardcore of Mills, Bradford, Morris, and Wright — still voted for it, clearly as a symbolic gesture only.

What all this augurs is the likelihood of vigorous argument over the budget when that process begins some weeks from now, and several ad hoc skirmishes over expenditures between now and then.

• For several years, sentiment had been mounting among local voting-rights activists for new voting machines, and at length the Shelby County Election Commission, county Election Administrator Linda Phillips, and the Shelby County Commission all concurred in the necessity for such refurbishing, inasmuch as scarcely a single election has occurred in the last several decades without some mishap — and often a full-blown scandal — marring it.

The issue is, which kind of new machine. All principals acknowledge that the new machines, which Phillips has said she hopes to have on hand in time for this year’s August round of voting, must have “paper trail” capacity, for purposes of accuracy. The main source of debate at the moment is whether the new machines should allow for “voter-marked” ballots, filled out by hand and subject to a verification process including scanning by machine, or rely instead on machine-marked ballots, the printed results of which can be checked before final casting.

Phillips has said she prefers the latter process, maintaining that there is an 8 to 12 percent chance of voter error with voter-marked paper ballots. Proponents of such ballots deny those statistics and counter that the process of machine-marking ballots allows for fraud by means of computer hacking.

Democratic Election Commissioner Bennie Smith makes the latter point and last week conducted a demonstration before the county commission of how just a hacking could occur.

While the commission must approve the final funding for the new machines, it is the Election Commission which will determine the type to be purchased. An RFP (“request for proposal”) has been issued by the SCEC, and responses are expected on behalf of both types of voting machine. A group of pro-voter-marking activists turned up at last week’s meeting of the Election Commission and were denied permission to speak, on grounds that the RFP process was incomplete, though Smith and Republican Election Commissioner Brent Taylor demurred from the prohibition.

A group of the activists, with Smith in tow, lobbied the county commission on behalf of a resolution backing the voter-marked machines on Monday. Sponsor Van Turner acknowledged that the ultimate decision lay with Phillips and the SCEC but noted, “We can withhold funding.” Phillips countered: “And we can sue.”

In the end, the county commission sent the matter back to committee for further discussion.