Harry Burn was a first-term Republican state representative from McMinn county, the youngest Tennessee state legislator serving in 1920 when women’s suffrage hung in the balance in our state. Back then, only one state was needed to ratify the Nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution, an amendment that would give women the right to vote. Like many legislators at the time, Representative Burn was under extreme pressure from sexist politicians back home to oppose the amendment, to keep women “in their place”. Some even believed that Rep. Burn was a safe bet to vote against suffrage, since he wore a red rose on his lapel, a color then (and now) that represented exclusion and disenfranchisement. But as the pivotal vote approached, the opponents of inclusion did not know that Representative Burn carried in his coat pocket a letter from his widowed mother urging him to vote for ratification. When his name was called, Harry Burn voted “yes”, the single deciding vote that ratified – for our entire nation – the Nineteenth Amendment.

Ben West was the Mayor of Nashville in 1960, when Black college students began a series of lunch-counter sit-ins in segregated department stores that were just among the many pillars of the Jim Crow South. For months, those students had been arrested and hauled off to jail. As a result, the Black community had boycotted Nashville stores and Whites had also stayed away, crippling the downtown Nashville economy. Tensions had risen to the point where the home and church of Reverend Alexander Looby, a civil rights leader, had been bombed, sending him to the hospital. Responding to that violence, thousands of Nashvillians marched to City Hall where Mayor West met them. One young Fisk student, Diane Nash, spoke quietly that day to Mayor West and pleaded with him to use the prestige of his office to end racial segregation. Mayor West’s response was simple and direct: “Yes, young lady, I will do that.” Years later, Ben West said that, at that moment, he had said the only thing that any moral person could say – that he had answered as a God-fearing man, and not as a politician. The next day, the Nashville Banner’s headline said it all “INTEGRATE COUNTERS – MAYOR”. Within a month, all Nashville lunch-counters were integrated and, with that positive role-model in the heart of the South, Jim Crow’s racist days were numbered.

That brings us to Senator Tim Burchett, a Knoxville Republican and the bravest and most patriotic man I know in our fair state today. For the past three years, Tennessee voters have been working hard to correct a serious error in how we conduct our elections here. In 2006, Tennessee wasted over $30 million in federal funds to purchase touch-screen voting machines (also called Direct Record Electronic machines, or DREs), voting machines that are slow, expensive and – worst of all – incapable of being audited or recounted. These machines have been implicated in a plethora of election fraud incidents across our country, and state after state has made the decision to ban these machines in favor of paper ballots. Tennessee was one of those states when we passed the TN Voter Confidence Act last year on a 92-3 vote in our House and a 32-0 vote in our Senate to replace those non-verifiable machines with paper ballots by the 2010 elections.

But when the Republican Party unexpectedly took control of our state legislature in 2008, one of the first things their leaders announced was that they intended to weaken, delay or repeal the Voter Confidence Act. For the past five months, a small band of Tennessee voters has traveled daily to our legislature and has witnessed a highly partisan and divided legislature, with most Democrats in favor of implementing the Voter Confidence Act as intended and most Republicans in favor of our continuing to vote on insecure and untrustworthy DREs. Since Republicans now control our General Assembly (for the first time since Reconstruction), we knew that the prospects for protecting our franchise were in peril.

Yesterday evening, as our Senate debated long and hard about a bill to delay implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012 and to gut the law’s election audit provisions, it was clear that the vote would be close and split along party lines. When the final vote was cast, the tally was 16-14 to delay democracy by postponing the implementation of the Voter Confidence Act until 2012. At first, we were crest-fallen, thinking that we had lost. But then one of us remembered that it takes 17 votes in the Senate for a law to pass, and with only 16 votes, the measure had failed. When we looked up at the vote board, we could see that all Democrats had voted to keep the Voter Confidence Act on-track for 2010 (except one, who had abstained) and all Republicans had voted to delay and weaken democracy. All of them, that is, except one. Senator Tim Burchett, a man who has been steadfast and vocal in his support for free, fair and verifiable elections for the past three years; and whose singular vote last night in opposition to the rest of his party allowed democracy to prevail in our state.

Thank you, Senator Burchett. Your intelligence, courage and sense of honor and fairness are what this country was built on, and what we must have in order for this nation to survive. Like Atticus Finch in “To Kill A Mockingbird”, your singular bravery has helped keep us free. And like the Black citizens who filled the courtroom gallery in that long-ago movie, I will, from this day forward, stand up when you enter a room. Because I will know that I am in the presence of a modern-day patriot, the latest in a long line of American heros who sprang from the hills of our Tennessee when they were needed to help keep our nation strong and safe — and free. Yesterday, you saved our democracy.

Bernie Ellis, Organizer
Gathering To Save Our Democracy

New election. New candidates.

Same black box voting, same electronic morass masquerading as a true vote in the 2004 presidential election in many parts of the country. In what is a growing nationwide trend, Clarksville will be returning to paper ballets, according to the city’s Election Commission, but it won’t happen in time for the November 2008 Presidential election. It could have, but apparently the impetus for change, for truth in voting, was not strong enough in Montgomery County or in the state to get this job done pre-November 2008, even though the discussion of this change began in earnest last January.

Here is a clip from the film UNCOUNTED: the New Math of American Elections, by Nashville’sown David Earnhardt.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now with a critical presidential election looming, UNCOUNTED will take the leap from grassroots organizing tool to mainstream wake-up call with a timely convergence of events that will expose its message to wider audience.

First, premium movie service provider Starz will present the world television premiere of UNCOUNTED on Starz Edge, Monday, August 25 at 10:30 p.m. (et/pt), and Starz Cinema on Thursday, August 28 at 10:00 P.M.

“As this is one of the most important elections in our nation’s history, premiering this thought-provoking documentary is not only timely, but necessary viewing.”

– Nancy Silverstone, Vice President of Program Acquisitions at Starz Entertainment.

Next, the distribution company, Disinformation, will release the documentary to retail outlets, including Amazon.com and Netflix, on Tuesday, August 26.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Washington, DC rally protesting 2004 Ohio presidential election results (Photo: EON - Ecological Options Network)

“Disinformation has become known as the home of the political documentary and we’ve screened many films about voting but didn’t find any that were compelling enough to attract and influence a wide audience. UNCOUNTED totally changed my perception of how effective a film about our dysfunctional election system could be. Our goal is to expose UNCOUNTED to as many Americans as possible before the presidential election so that the people can demand – and get – fair and honest elections.”

– Gary Baddeley, CEO of The Disinformation Company

UNCOUNTED also travels to the epicenter of the country’s political activity to screen at the prestigious American Film Institute Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Tuesday, September 9, at 7:00 PM. The AFI screening will feature a post-film panel discussion moderated by veteran broadcast journalist Bob Edwards, host of XMPR Satellite Radio’s “The Bob Edwards Show.” Panel members will include, Mimi Kennedy, Board Chair for Progressive Democrats of America, Rev. DeForest Soaries, former Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and others.

UNCOUNTED will continue to spread its message until the November election with screenings and panel discussions all over the country, including a stop in Los Angeles, San Diego and Mission Valley. The LA panel discussion will feature Earnhardt, journalist Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, Diebold-whistleblower Steve Heller, and Heller’s lawyer, Blair Berk. The San Diego panel will feature Earnhardt and Friedman.

Filmmaker David Earnhardt with Rep. John Conyers, who chaired the House Judiciary Committee investigation into 2004 election irregularities (Photo: Earnhardt Pirkle, Inc.)

The movie has also made inroads into the international community, selling DVDs through the web site and screening in more than 20 countries. Clarksville Online, the only press to cover the world premiere of UNCOUNTED in Nashville last year, teamed up with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Clarksville to sponsor a screening of UNCOUNTED in December, 2007.

“The response internationally to UNCOUNTED has been better than expected,” said Cassie Yde, president, Television Syndication Company, “We’ve come to find out that other countries are vitally interested in our elections and the election process. UNCOUNTED is a great complement to election programming.”

“Our country has a long and varied history of stolen elections, systematic disenfranchisement, and manufactured election irregularities. Yet most of us still accept on faith the integrity of the election process. I hope that watching UNCOUNTED so close to the presidential election will expose our film and this critical issue to a whole new audience, shake to the core preconceived beliefs, and encourage immediate action before it’s too late.”

–David Earnhardt

NASHVILLE, TN (8.6.08) – In a statement about the fragile state of our electoral system, Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., singled out Nashville-based filmmaker David Earnhardt’s election integrity documentary, UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections, saying that it offered “warnings about the fragile state of our electoral system” and “evidence of how voting machines themselves can create problems.”

UnCounted made its premiere in November, 2007, to a standing room only crowd at Nashville’s Belcourt Theater, where Clarksville Online was the only media present to cover the event. Clarksville Online and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in December, 2007, teamed up with Uncounted producers David and Patricia Earnhardt to co-sponsor an equally packed screening of this film in Clarksville.

UnCounted details the issues of the past several elections, examining both the broader scope of problems with electronic voting and the focusing that same lens on a number of the most controversial problems including malfunctioning or potentially manipulated voting machines, the lack of verifiable voting (the paper ‘trail’), and an insufficient number of machines at a number of polls.

In his statement, Congressman Jackson held up Michigan and Tennessee, states that will hold their primary elections this week, as examples where people go to the polls without having an explicit right to vote.

“The affirmative right to vote is not in the Constitution. Until we put it there we will continue to have presidents selected by the Supreme Court, partisan officials crafting rules in their favor, and voters disenfranchised by political games or plain old sloppiness. The Advancement Project report details a dizzying array of Election Day meltdowns, and in Uncounted there’s evidence of how voting machines themselves can create problems. Without the constitutionally-protected right to vote, we don’t have the power to make sure that every vote is counted in a complete, fair and efficient manner.”

– Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.

“Every Congress since 2001, I’ve introduced House Joint Resolution 28 (H.J. Res. 28), legislation calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting everyone the affirmative right to vote. It’s time to scrap the states’ rights-based system we have now, and place the right to vote alongside the constitutionally-protected right to free speech. Voting gives you the political power to protect all of your other rights. That power is the bedrock of our democracy. It should not be left to political whims, economic downturns and disenfranchising procedures,” said Jackson.

The house state & local government committee rolled our bill (HB 1256) from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12 – this coming Tuesday. It will be heard at 10:30 in Room 16 at Legislative Plaza.

The senate state & local government committee will be hearing our bill (SB 1363) that same day at noon in Room 12.

We expect (but aren’t sure) that both bills will pass out of the committees. The next stop is the Finance, Ways & Means committee where the members will consider how the bill would be funded. This is where we anticipate the most difficulty.

However, there are reasons to be hopeful

1. The U.S. Congress has directed the Election Assistance Commission to allow leftover HAVA money (the money that funded the original purchase of voting equipment in 2006) to be used to buy optical scan machines to replace the paperless DREs. The EAC has not provided that permission to the states yet. We are in direct communication with the EAC and are hopeful that permission will be granted soon.
2. There is a new emergency bill being introduced by Rep. Rush Holt to the U.S. Congress giving money to states who wish to purchase optical scan machines in time for the November election.
3. Acknowledging the importance of fair elections, the TN Legislature or the Governor could choose for the state to fund the $25 million needed to make the change, hoping but not knowing that the money might be repaid by federal dollars.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The other hurdle

The people in charge of making this change to optical scan machines are not in favor of it. Brook Thompson, Coordinator of Elections says that there is insufficient time to make the change before the 2008 Presidential election and he doesn’t even acknowledge that the change is needed.

What you can do

In addition to the main message that “Tennessee must have paper ballots by the 2008 Presidential Election”, other points you may wish to make to strengthen your argument:

1. Federal funds are likely to become available in the near future.
2. Even if federal funds are not available, you are in favor of using state funds.
3. The transition in 2006 to the unreliable DREs was done in less time that we now have and other states have made this change in the amount of time we have – so the change to optical scan is possible.
4. You personally believe in the importance of this change (and why).

Where to send your emails

State & Local Government Committee – House

• Representative Ben West
• Representative Bob Bibb
• Representative Curtis Johnson
• Representative Eddie Yokley
• Representative Gary Moore
• Representative Harry Tindell
• Representative Jim Coley
• Representative Jimmy Eldrige
• Representative Jimmy Matlock
• Representative Joe Pitts
• Representative Joey Hensley
• Representative John Litz
• Representative Larry Miller
• Representative Mary Pruitt
• Representative Parkey Strader
• Representative Randy Rinks
• Representative Steve McManus
• Representative Todd Curry
• Representative Ulysses Jones
• Representative Vince Dean

State & Local Government Committee – Senate

• Senator Bill Ketron
• Sentator Bo Watson
• Senator Joe Haynes
• Sentator Lowe Finney
• Senator Mark Norris
• Senator Steve Roller
• Senator Thelma Harper
• Sentator Tim Burchett

You should also consider contacting: Speaker of the House, Jimmy Naifeh; Lt. Governor – Ron Ramsey; and Governor Phil Bredesen.

There will be a meeting of the Gathering to Save Our Democracy group on Wednesday, February 13, at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville, TN – downstairs in the meeting room of Bronte Bistro. The meeting will be from 6:30 – 8:00 PM and we will be discussing the next actions needed. Please come if you would like to become more involved!

Gathering to Save Our Democracy
http://www.votesafetn.org/

With those words activist Bernie Ellis, a staunch advocate for traceable, verifiable voting records, cited a BRAD BLOG report announcing the publication of a major New York Times article on the issues surrounding electronic voting.

According to The BRAD BLOG, the NYT article includes a graphic of an exploding voting booth and a warning that your vote may be “lost, destroyed, miscounted, wrongly attributed or hacked.” The story is reportedly titled “The Bugs in the Machine.” The story claims that electronic voting machines may create far greater problems than hanging chads and cites a ten percent failure of electronic voting machines. http://www.bradblog.com

Just over a month ago, Ellis appeared at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for a screening of the David Earnhardt film, UnCounted, which offered a scathing indictment of electronic voting machines and the  disenfranchising of entire blocks of voters.

The film premiered in Nashville in November and was virtually ignored by mass media with the exception of Clarksville Online. The second Tennessee screening of this film was held in Clarksville and sponsored in part by Clarksville Online.

Since then, Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) has issued a statement urging a paper trail of votes statewide.

Today the Associated Press reported that only two of Tennessee’s 95 counties maintain a paper trail of ballots and urged all 95 counties to adopt the practice of backing e-voting with a paper trail. Tennessee is one of only 12 states that do not require some form of verifiable voting documentation.

As Tennessee voters head to the polls for a February 5 Presidential Primary, all eyes will be scrutinizing the voters, the machines, and the tallies. The TACIR report, which will be completed this month, calls for verifiable voter records within a “reasonable” period of time. “Reasonable” is as yet undefined, but proponents of a paper trail urge that it be completed before the 2008 election.

Our efforts to achieve more secure elections in Tennessee moved forward this week when the TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) voted unanimously to release the TACIR staff report, Trust But Verify, to the state legislature and the general public.

The TACIR Commissioners were obviously influenced by the outpouring of emails and other messages they received from many of you last week. They told us that hearing from so many people did influence their deliberations. We need that to happen again in the next 2-3 days in order to move safe elections legislation forward.

The joint legislative study committee that is considering a bill to require optical scan voting systems statewide by November, 2008 meets on Tuesday, December 18. The recommendations of this study committee and the actions it recommends to the legislature will go a long way toward determining if our elections will be secure in 2008.

I urge you to go to www.votesafetn.org and follow the suggestions there. Send an email to the legislative study committee members supporting voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits to be put in place before November, 2008. You can write each member separately or write them en masse. Whatever you do, it will make a difference so please send these emails in the next 2-3 days. (Bernie Ellis, pictured at right, urges verifiable ballots during at right during a recent appearance in Clarksville).

If you have a few more minutes, you can also scroll down at the web-site to find contact information for other important state officials, including Governor Phil Bredesen, Secretary of State Riley Darnell and others. Letting them hear from you will help our efforts immensely.

Finally, if you’re not from Tennessee but know that, if our country is to survive, all of us have a stake in how votes are cast and counted in every other state, please take a few minutes to write our Governor Phil Bredesen to tell him to please let our votes count in Tennessee. His email address is Phil..us

These changes were required in every state for the 2006 federal election. Millions of tax dollars were allocated and dispersed to the states to upgrade and buy new equipment that would incorporate these requirements.

Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines are touch screen machines with no paper ballot. In Tennessee manufacturers of electronic voting systems including Diebold (a Diebold Voting Machine is shown above right), ES&S, Hart, and Microvote, eagerly marketed their Direct Recording Electronic machines to county election officials, although most of these manufacturers also produce optical scan voting systems. Optical scan systems are less costly, more efficient, and most importantly use paper ballots, marked by each voter, then optically scanned to record and count the vote.

Problems with DREs

DREs are essentially notebook computers programmed to display ballot images, record and count voter choices, and store this information on removable memory cards. Like any computer, the DREs can get a virus, be incorrectly programmed, or malfunction, either through innocent mishap or malicious intent. It is important to remember that when problems occur with the DREs, there is no independent record of each vote, so no meaningful recount or audit is possible.

Thousands of problems with electronic voting systems have arisen in dozens of states, including votes “flipped”, votes not counted, and malfunctioning memory cards. While most problems have been machine malfunctions from programming errors or poll worker inexperience, some less savory problems have occurred, including in 2006 in Memphis, where evidence revealed tampering had occurred in the central vote tabulator. It is clear that DREs are vulnerable to errors, malfunctions and tampering. As a result, it’s impossible to safeguard votes on such equipment.

In early 2005, I organized Save Our Democracy, a grassroots group that has continuously learned about voting issues and equipment. In 2006 SOD formed a coalition with Common Cause TN. The group’s members have also worked with county and state election commissions, legislators, the state coordinator of elections and other citizen groups to encourage county commissions to purchase optical scan voting systems, NOT DRE’s.

Finally in 2006, 93 of the 95 Tennessee counties chose DRE systems. Only Pickett county bought an optical scan system, while Hamilton County converted to optical scan voting nine years ago.

The current reality in the US and Tennessee

In 35 states, all votes are cast on voter verifiable paper ballots. Only five states still use DREs exclusively. Tennessee lags behind, with only two counties safeguarding their elections. We must have legislation that mandates paper ballots.

What’s the answer? The simple fix is making sure all voters vote on electronic voting systems that start with a paper ballot that they mark. Throw out the DREs and replace them with optical scan voting systems. Election officials will tell us there is not time to switch to optical scan machines before the November 2008 election. In 2006,however, the counties ordered and installed completely new equipment in seven months, so there is time to make the change to optical scan systems by November.

What’s happening in the Tennessee Legislature?

In 2005, Rep. Susan Lynn and Sen. Bill Bryson introduced the first bill to mandate paper ballots. In the 2006 legislative session, we worked closely with Rep. Gary Moore and Senator Joe Haynes to craft a comprehensive bill, The Voter Confidence Act that would mandate paper ballots, post election audits, and high level security for the voting systems. After the 2006 election, legislators began to appreciate the problems with the DREs: 12 bills were introduced in 2007 that would increase voter security. All of these bills, including The Voter Confidence Act SB 1363 HB 1256, are currently being reviewed by a joint Senate-House Study Committee that will report its recommendations to the General Assembly by Feb. 2008. The next meeting will be Dec. 18.

A second examination revealing the flaws and dangers of electronic voting issues is also underway. The TN Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations -TACIR – is conducting a sweeping examination of voting and election issues. Their two interim reports, written by the staff and issued in June and September, 2007, urge the state to move to optical scan voting systems as soon as possible.

Sign up at www.votesafetn.org to receive our email alerts.

Reprinted from Gathering to Save Our Democracy (11.12.07)

This “action kit” will get you started (or moving faster) to register your concerns with our state leaders.

Here are three things YOU CAN DO NOW to help up ramp up the discussion for voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits here in Tennessee. Now here are three things you can do to help us gain serious momentum:

Action Task 1. Contact the members of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR).(They meet on December 12, so please contact them right away.) Tell them that you want them to endorse the TACIR staff report, “Trust But Verify”. You also recommend to the legislature that we move rapidly away from paperless touch-screen voting in Tennessee and toward optical scan voting systems that start and end with a voter-completed paper ballot. You also endorse the need for mandatory random audits of those paper ballots to ensure that the opscan systems also count our votes completely and accurately. Here is a sample letter:

Dear TACIR Commissioners,

I am writing to thank you, through your participation in TACIR, for your serious review and assessment of the threats, costs and other issues that paperless touch-screen voting has presented to maintaining the integrity of our elections here in Tennessee. You have heard much testimony and would doubtless hear more if there were time available for citizens to do so once again. However, the time for a decision is now upon us and we hope that TACIR will accomplish the following on December 12:

1. Accept and endorse the TACIR staff report, “Trust But Verify”, as an excellent summary of the many compelling reasons why we must act to restore integrity to our voting process.
2. Act as the influential body that you are to recommend that the Tennessee legislature consider, debate and adopt (as soon as possible) legislation which will support and assist the orderly adoption of voting systems that use or produce voter-verified paper ballots in Tennessee, to be counted on more secure and verifiable voting equipment (specifically, optical scan or similar voting systems) than we have recently installed.
3. Recommend that the state of Tennessee assist counties in the transformation to more secure and verifiable voting systems as soon as possible by working to provide both state funds, redirected HAVA funds (of which we still have between $15-20 million) and other means to reduce the economic impact of these state-mandated efforts to restore integrity in our voting process might have on those county governments.
4. Encourage the Legislative Study Committee assigned to review the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (HB 1256, Moore; SB 1363, Haynes) on December 18 to recommend that this legislation go forward as quickly as possible and that it be considered, debated and adopted by the full Legislature when it re-convenes in January.

Once again, thank you for the time and attention you have given to the issue of election integrity — and specifically more verifiable voting systems — through your work on the TACIR Board. We sincerely hope that you will support some affirming action by TACIR at the December 12 meeting that will hasten needed election reform in our state.

Thank you for your public service. Here’s hoping we can rescue our franchise and save our democracy here in Tennessee before it is too late.

(Your signature)

Here are all the available TACIR Commission emails we have. You can “cut-and-paste” this list of email addresses into your email address spot and email all of them at once. (It might be nice to “bcc” all of them so the email seems more individually directed.) :

• senator.rosalind..tn.us
• senator.james..tn.us
• senator.mark..tn.us
• senator.jim..tn.us
• rep.jason..tn.us
• rep.gary..tn.us
• rep.randy..tn.us
• rep.larry..tn.us
• senator.randy..tn.us
• rep.craig..tn.us
• john..us
• paula..us
• drew..us
• Rose..us

Action Task 2: Contact the members of the Legislative Study Committee who will review the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act on December 18. Ask them to support repairing our election process by requiring voter-verified paper ballots and mandatory random audits here in Tennessee as soon as possibly, preferably 2008. Here’s a sample letter I just sent:

Dear TN Voter Confidence Act Study Committee Members:

I am writing to thank you in advance for your serious review and assessment of the threats, costs and other issues that paperless touch-screen voting has presented to restoring the integrity of our elections here in Tennessee. We hope you will use the information you receive and review on December 18 to recommend immediate action to restore the integrity of our franchiase here in Tennessee. The time for a decision is now if we are to protect our votes before November, 2008. Please do the following things:

(copy itemized list from above letter)

Thank you for your public service. You can rescue our franchise. We can’t afford another insecure election.

(your signature)

————–
These are the Legislative Study Committee members for the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act. “Cut-and-paste” them into the address box of an email and write them all at once.

• rep.joe..tn.us
• rep.gary..tn.us
• rep.john..tn.us
• rep.jimmy..tn.us
• rep.joe..tn.us
• rep.larry..tn.us
• rep.susan..tn.us
• senator.joe..tn.us
• senator.roy..tn.us
• senator.mark..tn.us
• senator.tim..tn.us
• senator.jamie..tn.us

Action Task 3: Contact other Tennessee officials NOW to ask them to pay attention to this issue and to act themselves, if necessary, to insure that these reforms are enacted. Here’s a preliminary list of state officials that we should be contacting in some way. I hope each of you will email your thoughts directly to some or all of these officials. In addition, you might want to mail copies of UNCOUNTED or the postcards recommending that it be watched to these same offices. I think the post-cards in particular can generate attention to these issues within these state offices.

We are asking all of these officials to do the following:

1. To please give serious consideration to the number of threats which our elections face and to consider what they can do to restore election integrity in our state
2. To do whatever they can do in their official capacity to help us replace the current non-verifiable voting systems used in most Tennessee counties (touch-screen and push-button voting machines) with verifiable voting systems that incorporate paper ballots (for example, the optical scan voting systems)
3. To encourage others in positions of responsibility for our elections to expedite the changes necessary to make our elections more secure and verifiable before the November, 2008 elections or as soon as possible, by whatever means available.

Bottom line

It’s not too late to restore election integrity in Tennessee, but we must act NOW. We can’t afford another insecure election in our state. Not when the solution is achievable NOW.

Please consider emailing and/or writing these officials directly. If you would like some post-cards which use the UNCOUNTED poster as the front and allows you to write your own message on the back, get in touch with me and we’ll get some of those cards to you. You can email me or call 931/682-2864.

Governor’s Office

Governor Phil Bredesen: phil..us
First Lady Andrea Conte: andrea..us

Governor’s Office
TN State Capital
Nashville, TN 37243-0001

TN Attorney General

Robert E. Cooper, Jr.
P.O. Box 20207
Nashville, TN 37202-0207

Department of Finance & Administration

Commissioner Dave Goetz
312 8th Ave., North, 16th Floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Administration: J. Michael Morrow mike..us
Public Info: Lola Potter lola..us

Secretary of State

Riley Darnell: riley..us
312 8th Ave. North, 8th Floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Elections and State Election Commission

Brook Thompson: brook..us
312 8th Ave., North, 9th floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Department of Economic and Community Development

Commissioner Matt Kisber: matt..us
Asst. Commissioner Paula Davis: paula..us
312 8th Ave. North, 11th floor
Nashville, TN 37243

Department of Veterans Affairs

Commissioner John Keys TN..us
215 8th Ave. North
Nashville, TN 37243

Bernie Ellis introduces “UnCounted”

Producers describe UnCounted as “an explosive documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election led to even greater fraud in 2006 — and now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. This controversial film examines…how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity…”

“There is still time to return to a verifiable system [such as paper ballots] for the 2008 presidential election,” Ellis said. Ellis, (at left with producer Patricia Earnhardt), is featured in this film. He noted that when issues arose with the e-machines in Maryland, the Republican governor of that state dumped the machines in favor of paper ballots in just seven weeks to guarantee the “integrity” of the election.

UnCounted details the long lines, missing machines, inaccuracies in tabulating votes, and the ways voting machines can be tampered with to affect tallies. The film documents long voting lines, missing and failed machines, and other occurrences in the 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections. It examines the relationship between companies such as Diebold, manufacturer of voting machines that serve millions of American voters, and elected officials including election commissions and federal and state officers whose decisions affect how Americans will cast their votes.

In Nashville, David Earnhardt said “buying a Krispy Kreme donut was better documented than our vote.” Our most vital right as as Americans is our right to vote, and that right is being eroded by the manipulation and malfunctioning of electronic voting machines, and there is no paper trail, no way to verify how votes were cast or tabulated.

Patricia Earnhardt (above right with display of UnCounted DVDs) introduced the film, noting that the Clarksville screening was only the second time this film has been shown in the state of Tennessee, though it has been screened in 39 other states and several other countries since its worldwide premiere in Nashville in November at the Belcourt Theater. That premiere played to a standing room only crowd, just as last night’s screening played to a full house. At both events, the film generated heavy comments and considerable questions in the post-film debate. Earnhardt also noted the absence of interest by mainstream media in this film, noting that Clarksville Online was the only media to cover the world premiere of Uncounted in Nashville.

For a state that tipped the scales on women’s suffrage and was pivotal in civil rights, Tennessee stands “eighth from bottom” on a list of states when it comes to election integrity, Ellis (at right) said. “[Election officials] say it is too late to change how we vote in this state. It is not. If Maryland can do it in seven weeks, we can too.”

Ellis noted that pivotal votes on the voting process are coming up on December 18 and urged this audience to contact their legislators and election commissioners to demand verifiable voting. Ellis is also creating a lending library of UnCounted DVDs that will be available at no cost to groups who want to screen this film.

Friday’s event was hosted by the Unitarian fellowship and sponsored by the FreeThinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties and Clarksville Online.

FreeThinkers founder Debbie Boen was “excited” over the turnout, voicing satisfaction that so many people are interested in the voting process and concerned about issues of voting and electronic machines. “This kind of turnout just fuels us, recharges us and makes us want to do more.”

Boen (at left) brought her sculpture, Bob, to the event, attaching a “trust me” sign about voting to this figure, which has been displayed in numerous art venues throughout Clarksville.

Clarksville Online Publisher Bill Larson, equally pleased with the success of the program, said that Clarksville sponsorship of this event, which was offered admission-free as a community service by all sponsoring groups, is just the first of a number of community programs Larson would endorse in the coming year. “This is part of what we give back to the community.”

Ellis wrapped up the event with recommended contacts and suggested actions for those interested in voicing their opinion about electronic voting.

Ellis urged anyone who wants to know more or wants to communicate with legislators on the issue to email him ( "> ) for an action packet and/or visit the web-site: www.votesafetn.org . More information is also available at ">.

Here is a preview of UnCounted: The Movie –

Click here to view the embedded video.

Additional photos from the Clarksville premiere of UnCounted:

A crowd gathered at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship for the Clarksville screening of David Earnhardt’s film, UnCounted

Bernie Ellis (left) makes a point on e-voting

Many viewers lingered after the film to comment on the e-voting issue and question Ellis on the finer points in the film

Chris Lugo, candidate for U.S. Senate, who attended the Nashville premiere and the Clarksville screening, discusses the electronic voting issue

FreeThinkers founder Debbie Boen makes a point on e-voting

Photos by David Shelton and Christine Anne Piesyk

Uncounted is a new documentary that explores the issues surrounding electronic voting and is a strong statement in support of a “paper trail” documenting how Americans cast their votes.

The film tackles the issue of voting machine error/failure, the need for a paper trail of votes, the political and business ties between government officials and manufacturers of these DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines, and the ease of tampering with such machines and “flipping” votes that are electronically counted.

“I cannot think of anything more important than to save the core of our democracy — the vote! — David Earnhardt (at right)

The film also reviewed extensive cases of mechanical errors, lost votes, voters turned away from polls, incomplete ballots and the installation of uncertified software into voting machine reported from across the nation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uncounted made its national debut earlier this month in Nashville, when it was also announced that Secretaries of State in all fifty states were being subjected to a lawsuit that calls for a mandatory paper trail of votes.

The lawsuit is aimed at prohibiting the use of all types of vote counting machines, and requiring hand-counting of all primary and general election ballots in full view of the public.The lawsuit has raised significant constitutional questions challenging the generally accepted practices of state election officials of relying on “black box” voting machines to record and count the votes at each polling station, and allow tallying of votes by election officials outside the view of the general public. In many cases, states have officially authorized voting “systems” that leave virtually no paper trail from which to audit the vote. (excerpt from We The People)

Ellis (left), in a statement made in Nashville, said that regardless of what voters are being told, “there is still time to pass legislation that would mandate voter verifiable paper ballots in 2008.” The Tennessee Voter Confidence Act of 2007 [Senate Bill 1363/House Bill 1256], sponsored by Senator Joe Haynes and Rep. Gary Moore, mandates a paper trail.

“Today in Tennessee, 93 of our 95 counties use nonverifiable, paperless touch-screen voting machines . In 2006, over one in every six Tennessee counties reported problems with this equipment. Our state is not alone, but (sadly) it is now one of the worst states for voting security and accountability in this nation.” — Bernie Ellis

The lawsuit seeks an Order from the Court prohibiting the use of all voting machines and to force election officials to instead utilize paper ballots and to count and total all votes by hand, always in full view of the public. Plaintiffs from all fifty states have signed on to the lawsuit.

Earnhardt and Ellis will host a discussion of electronic voting following the film. The event is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalists, Clarksville Online and the FreeThinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties. Admission is free, but bring your own popcorn. Copies of the DVD will be available at this presentation. For more information, call 931-920-5390.