Guest post by Tennessee Voters for Election Integrity
FRANKLIN, Tenn. (March 1, 2022) — In March 2021, our group documented our initial 51 election integrity issues from the 2020 election and presented them to WCEC Chairman Bob Brown and Election Administrator Chad Gray on March 10, 2021. Brown claimed to start answering the questions but later declined to do so, saying he’d rather await a recertification process the WCEC asked the Tennessee State Election Commission to perform on Dominion machines. A large portion of our questions were not about the machines but concerned election processes and other technology issues noted in the Williamson County election. We still await answers.
In their April 2021 meeting, the state Commission agreed to look into recertifying the Dominion machines as well as the other four brands of voting machines used in Tennessee. But, to date they have yet to put the machines through a recertification process, despite questions by TVEI on February 4, 2022 about this to Election Coordinator Mark Goins, Secretary of State Tre Hargett and members of the Tennessee State Election Commission (SEC). We have received no answers to our questions.
Our major concern with the ES&S machines – and all voting machines, for that matter — comes as the Washington, D.C.-based Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which certifies all U.S. election voting equipment, in 2021 granted voting machine vendors the ability to include wireless networking devices in voting machines.
A former board member of the EAC, Dr. Phillip Stark, resigned from the Board because of this move, which was made without Board approval or citizen input and is now suing the EAC. Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins sits on the EAC’s Standards Board.
Additional concerns with the recertification process came as we learned that Jessica Bowers, a ten-year employee of Dominion who in 2018 sold the Tennessee State Election Commission on allowing Dominion to enter Tennessee (and in 2019 sold Williamson County and Hamilton County on using Dominion machines) is now head of certification at the EAC. We anticipated that the EAC would be involved in the recertification process of all brands of machines used in Tennessee as agreed to in April 2021 by the SEC and suspected she could not be impartial on recertifying machinery she sold to the state in the first place.
Other attempts to discuss these and other issues with state and local election officials include:
Chain-of-custody for scanner tub without security seal tag at October 27, 2021 audit
- Oct. 31, 2021 public records request to Williamson County.
- Dec. 6, 2021 second public records request to Williamson County.
- Dec. 6, 2021 first public records request to Secretary of State as election pulled to Nashville for study by Tennessee Election Coordinator Mark Goins and WCEC Chairman Bob Brown.
- Jan. 18. 2022 response back to WCEC lawyer answering questions/explaining 12/6 request.
- Feb. 4, 2022 Secretary of State office denies request for specific documents.
- Feb. 4, 2022 we reach out to WCEC Chairman Bob Brown/WCEC Election Administrator Chad Gray to discuss these issues. No answer.
- Feb. 6, 2022 more specific explanation of our request of this chain of custody given to the SoS counsel who is now our contact there.
- Feb. 11, 2022 SoS counsel says he won’t be answering any further questions/documents.
- Feb. 22, 2022 we reach out again to Brown/Gray and their lawyer to discuss these issues. No answer.
Factually incorrect poll officer reports
- Since the WCEC lawyer has forbidden us to talk with — and we assumed placed a gag order on — Brown/Gray to talk with us, and the Secretary of State’s office refuses to discuss these issues, we shared with Senator Jack Johnson (Feb 9 & 14) and Representative Brandon Ogles (Jan 28 & Feb 3) our whitepaper and executive summary concerning what we’ve found regarding the October 26th election and the remaining unanswered issues. Granted, the General Assembly has resumed and Johnson was instrumental in getting Dominion removed from the county, but neither have responded regarding these critical issues beyond Dominion and the fact that local and state officials are refusing to speak with us. If you can’t take questions and issues about the election process in your county and state to the highest officials in both, who can you turn to?
Results Tally & Reporting system concerns
- Aug. 10, 2021 letter to Bob Brown about questions for Dominion including the RTR issue since Dominion won’t talk with us. Issue discovered by reviewing the Dominion machine manuals by corporate security expert. No answer comes when we ask for simple clarification of what we believe to be possible with this finding.
- Aug. 10, 2021 letter to Tennessee Election Coordinator Mark Goins requesting he get questions to vendors – especially this RTR issue to Dominion — after no vendor agrees to talk with us. No answer from Goins.
- Sep. 28, 2021 RTR issue confirmed definitive by machine inspection for candidates and confirmation from WCEC employee. No follow up action on this by WCEC despite knowledge that it is an issue.
- Oct. 11, 2021 Presentation to TN State Election Commission and Tennessee Election Coordinator Mark Goins where the issue is specifically discussed. No action taken by Goins or Commission.
- Dec. 6, 2021 open records request to Williamson County Election Commission. No response given on this question which was included in the open records request.
- Dec. 6, 2021 open records request to Secretary of State.
- Jan 15, 2022 follow up with Secretary of State since no answer given and WCEC had refused to answer our questions.
- Jan. 18. 2022 response back to WCEC lawyer answering his questions and further explaining our 12/6 request. No response to our request.
- Feb. 4, 2022 we reach out to Bob Brown/Chad Gray to discuss these issues personally. No answer.
- Feb. 6, 2022 more specific explanation of request of this RTR issue is given to the SoS counsel since clarification was needed since he didn’t seem to understand the request and WCEC would not answer us.
- Feb. 11, 2022 SoS counsel says he won’t be answering any further questions/documents.
- Feb. 22, 2022 we reach out again to Brown/Gray and their lawyer one final time with the hope to discuss these issues. No answer has come.
About Tennessee Voters for Election Integrity
The Tennessee Voters for Election Integrity seeks to ensure election integrity for all Williamson County (its home county) and Tennessee voters by researching, documenting and alerting legislators, as well as community and state leaders and election officials to the weaknesses in our current election systems that might result in future election fraud from bad actors. This would additionally exacerbate the public’s lack of confidence and trust given credible, widespread allegations of voter fraud nationwide in the 2020 election and the fact that Williamson Countians voted on the same election equipment against which claims, reports and affidavits of fraud in other states have been leveled. www.tennesseeelectionintegrity.com
